#I’m not sad or any th ing

[vpyre]

Wow I am in a mental state rn. That’s for sure.

I feel insane. Nothing is real. Am I cringe? What is cringe? What’s irony and what’s legitimacy? I’m not feeling negative but these emotions certainly aren’t positive. I think evilmario’s blog has destroyed my exhausted, autistic-ass brain lmao and I can now no longer differentiate between ironic cringe and real cringe and not cringe and I dunno if I’M cringe or if that even matters or what defines cringe and now I feel like life is all some big scam and nothing fucking matters and we all make big deals about things to hide our crushing lack of certainty and fear of the unknown and the knowledge that we’re just piddly little dots in the grand scheme of things and our daily activities don’t actually matter but we make them matter more than they should which makes life a living fucking hell because we have thes stupid fucking rules and needs and constructs but maybe things do matter but how could they when things are so mutable and inconsistent and attitudes and nuances change so frequently and suddenly and completely wow is this what derealization feels likeAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[l1vingrot]

Love that my brother gets to make me a retard and he never faces any consequences.

I’m retarded, brain damaged, I can’t function as a normal adult and I doubt I ever will, I will be stuck living with the woman who let all this happen to me and the man who did it.

I won’t ever be able to have more then a retail/food service job, I won’t be able to handle it.

Because im retarded im worthless i should’ve just killed my self because im just a sad disgusting th ing.

I wish he had managed to kill me so at least he may have suffered some consequence (that’s if my parents didn’t cover it up lol) they always valued him more and always will, it’s because I’m a worthless disgusting thing and I should die.

[sunlit-squid]

(simping softness prompts) could i get some “hey, everything's gonna be fine. stay where you are, i'm on my way” or “holy crap, i thought you were dead! never do that to me again!” if you are feeling so inclined? sorry im just in love w ur writing

For those who don't know, my ask box is open. Send me a simping softness prompt, and I'll write a short sbsp ficlet for you. ✰

i'm gonna do "hey, everything's gonna be fine ...", but don't you worry. i will also be doing "holy crap ..." at some point, since someone else requested it.

anyway, thanks for the prompt, and for the kind words! while we're here, i should also say that @wowthwtslame is doing a similar ficlet challenge. their writing is wonderful, so definitely check them out!

also tagging @azumeowth, who requested the same prompt!

ficlet under the cut. thanks again!

The call came in -- loudly -- at around 2 in the morning.

When Squidward rolled over to check his shell phone, the dull blue screen read, simply, “SpongeBrat”, accompanied by a vomit emoji. Sighing, the octopus put his phone on silent and went back to bed. Surely whatever it was the sponge wanted to blabber about could wait until tomorrow. After a decent night’s sleep.

Unfortunately, sleep was hard to come by. Despite having switched his phone to silent, the device’s small blue screen continued to light up repeatedly, like a small, pathetic rave. Every few seconds, the small blue light cast peculiar shadows on the walls of Squidward’s bedroom. Eventually, after thirty minutes of tossing and turning, the cephalopod grabbed his phone to shove it inside the nightstand -- when he caught a glimpse of the screen itself.

43 missed calls. 37 unread text messages. All from “SpongeBrat” Squarepants.

The phone rang again. This time, Squidward picked up.

“Spongebob, do you have any idea what time it is?” snapped Squidward, despite the uncomfortable, worried feeling growing in his stomach. “No? Well, I’ll tell you -- it is two-forty-seven --”

“I-I know, Squidward,” came a small, shaking Spongebob-voice. “I just -- I didn’t know what to do.”

Squidward paused. Well, that was … not the regular Spongebob volume. Or tone. Or pitch.

“Squ -- Squidward?” came the sponge’s soft, sad voice once more. The frycook’s voice was barely audible. There was some sort of loud, constant whooshing happening on the other end, not to mention a weird crackling noise, which made it very difficult to hear. Squidward sighed, wiping a tentacle across his eyes.

“I’m here,” said Squidward. “What’s this about, Spongebob?”

Silence. Then, crying -- and not Spongebob’s usual loud, obnoxious crying. This crying was quiet and gentle, barely decipherable against the loud whooshing on the other end of the line. Squidward sat up then, pressing the phone close to his ear.

“Sponge,” said Squidward, panic rising in his chest. “Sponge, what’s wrong?”

Spongebob sobbed something indiscernible. Then, he stammered, “I’m -- I’m hurt, Squidward. I’m hurt, and … I’m lost.”

Something funny exploded in Squidward’s chest. Before he knew it, the octopus was out of bed, scrambling for his jacket and keys. Gripping his shell phone tight, Squidward asked, “Where are you? What’s going on, Spongebob?”

On the other end of the line, Spongebob snuffled. “I got on the wrong bus,” he explained, in a shaky, uneven voice. “I -- I’m in a place called ‘Deviltown’ now, and the current is so strong, and the signal is pretty bad --” There was that distorted, crackling sound again -- followed by a few more broken whimpers.

Squidward sighed, feeling his hearts crack with every little sob. “Hey, everything’s going to be fine,” he said, stepping out the door and into the cool Bikini Bottom night. “Stay where you are. I’m on my way.”

-0-

Deviltown, it turned out, was several hours away from Bikini Bottom. Squidward’s shell phone indicated the drive not only went straight, but downward -- which was certainly a problem. Oceanic towns grew more and more dangerous the deeper you went, and Deviltown was apparently thousands of nautical leagues under the sea. Wherever Spongebob was, even the sun couldn’t reach him.

Undeterred, Squidward set off on his journey. His boat was constantly maintained, so the cephalopod was certain it could handle the perilous road ahead.

For the first hour or so, the drive was uneventful -- peaceful, even. The streets were smooth and well taken care of, which was good considering the massive tax hike this past year. Squidward even put on some Kelpy G, which certainly helped to soothe his nerves.

Later on, however, the drive got worse. The once well-maintained roads gave way to rickety rocks and slippery sand, with only a few sporadic road signs to get by. Moonlight became sparse, and by the time Squidward reached a vertical road, he had his brights all the way up -- and was still struggling to see.

A nearby rickety sign read “Deviltown, 10 nautical miles downward.” Peering down into the deep abyss, Squidward gulped. Despite his headlights, he still couldn’t see a thing -- just a vast expanse of open blackness.

A tight feeling wound itself around Squidward’s chest. He thought about backing up, turning around, and going straight home. This was ridiculous. Why was he out here, in the wee hours of the morning, chasing after SpongeBrat Squarepants, of all people? The boy had other friends. Certainly one of them would be willing to retrieve him.

Squidward’s tentacle hovered just over the gear stick. That’s when he saw it: in his passenger seat lay Spongebob’s wrinkled little jacket. The sponge must have left it behind the other day, when Squidward (begrudgingly) drove them both home from work.

Squidward’s chest felt hollow, suddenly. He thought of how many times he’d seen Spongebob in that exact jacket over the years.

He thought of never seeing him in that jacket ever again.

Groaning, the octopus switched gears from “Drive” to “Drive, But Downward”, and puttered his way into the deep and black abyss.

-0-

The journey into the inky black was, bar none, one of the creepiest things Squidward had ever experienced. He told himself, repeatedly, that if he just stared straight ahead and focused on the task at hand, then everything would be fine. Still, hearing creepy noises in the darkness (and being unable to see where they came from) was severely unsettling.

After what felt like forever, the vertical road became horizontal once again, and Squidward finally drove into Deviltown. Luckily, the town had the decency to set up some lamp posts, possibly for out-of-towners like Squidward who were unused to the darkness. Still, the lamp posts were few and far between, and there was nobody out and about, giving Deviltown a fittingly creepy vibe nonetheless.

Tense, cold, and worried, Squidward drove further into town, squinting for Spongebob’s bright yellow body. Surely the boy couldn’t be that hard to spot -- he was likely the only vibrant thing down here. Surely --

Oh. Oh, no.

Squidward brought his boat careening to a stop. Clambering out of it, the octopus made his way over to a rickety wooden bus stop, with a flickering lamp post just overhead. On a bench nearby was none other than Spongebob Squarepants: cold, alone, and unconscious. For a moment, a horrible thought passed through Squidward’s head -- is he dead? -- before he saw the sponge’s chest rise and fall, taking slow and steady breaths.

Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Squidward looked up and down the street. No one in sight.

Gently, the octopus leaned down and shook Spongebob lightly. “Hey,” said Squidward, awkwardly. “What are you doing asleep all the way out here? We have work tomorrow, you know.”

Spongebob stirred. In the dim light, Squidward realized the sponge really was hurt -- his usually spiffy shirt and tie were ripped straight down the middle. Beyond the fabric, the sponge’s chest was badly torn up, too, and for some reason, he had not regenerated yet.

Squidward swallowed. “Spongebob?”

The sponge stirred once more. This time, his eyes opened -- and he smiled, weakly. “Squidward,” he slurred, happily. He tried to laugh, then winced, clutching at his stomach and chest. “Squidward, it’s you … you came … ”

“Of course I came,” muttered Squidward, before he could stop himself. “I -- you … ugh, I hate you.”

Scooping up Spongebob, Squidward gently carried him over to the boat, positioning him carefully in the passenger’s seat. The sponge fussed a little about being buckled in, but otherwise, seemed too out of it to complain properly. Taking a deep breath, Squidward got back behind the wheel and started the engine.

“Heheh,” chuckled Spongebob as the boat roared to life. “Vroom-vroom.”

Squidward rolled his eyes and began turning the boat around, back towards Bikini Bottom. “We’re going home now,” he said, with a sigh. “You need to see a doctor for … whatever it was that happened to you.”

Spongebob simply nodded, then fell to his side, leaning all of his body weight on Squidward as he drove. The octopus felt warmth rising to his cheeks, and for once felt grateful for the murky blackness of the ocean void.

Spongebob was mumbling something.

“What is it?” said Squidward. “Are you okay?”

“I …uh … love you, Squidward,” said Spongebob, in a very loopy voice. “I love your big nose, and your paintings, and I wanna … get married, someday. Okay? Can we get married, someday?”

Squidward’s entire face was bright red now. It took everything in him not to just veer in a random direction and crash the entire damn boat. Taking a deep breath, the octopus collected himself. Spongebob was just severely injured, and loopy as a result. He didn’t really mean any of this.

Squidward decided to play along. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, we can get married.”

“Mm,” said Spongebob, chuckling softly. “Can I -- can I wear a dress?”

“Sure,” said Squidward. “Whatever you want.”

“And you’ll … and you’ll kiss me?”

“Mhm,” mumbled Squidward.

“And I can … listen to you play the clarinet around the house … and, and paint with you … and watch your soaps with … you … ”

Squidward looked over. The sponge had fallen asleep, and was snoring loudly. Which was … good. Very good. Excellent, even. That way, they couldn’t talk about marriage or love or any of that absolute nonsense. Now they could just drive forward in sweet silence.

Still, Squidward found himself dwelling over Spongebob’s words far more than he would have liked.

About an hour into the drive home, the octopus glanced over at the sponge, still fast asleep beside him. Fixing his gaze forward, Squidward took a deep breath, clutching the steering wheel in a tight death-grip.

“Spongebob, I …,” Squidward began, shakily. “I love you. I love you, I love you.”

Squidward found that once he started saying it, he couldn’t stop. The words felt good in his mouth, like a massive weight had finally been lifted off his chest.

“I love everything about you,” said Squidward, his three hearts exploding inside his chest. “Your annoying laugh, your stupid singing, all of it. I want to read with you, and garden with you.”

Squidward hesitated, his words floating out into the open water.

“I love you,” said Squidward, one last time. “And I … I don’t know what to do about it. Maybe I’m a coward. I’m sorry.”

Squidward looked over. Spongebob was still fast asleep, snoring away against his arm -- but the smallest of smiles had appeared on his face.

-0-

Squidward woke up in the hospital, seated in a chair next to Spongebob’s hospital bed. The poriferan was wide awake, watching an episode of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy on the hospital television. Of course.

The sponge turned. “Squidward!” he exclaimed, his voice loud and back to normal. “You’re awake!”

“Unfortunately,” muttered the octopus. “How are you feeling?”

“Great!” chirped Spongebob. “Better than ever, actually -- but the doc says I should stick around for a little while, just in case.”

Squidward glanced down. Sure enough, Spongebob’s chest had almost fully regenerated. Thank Neptune. When they arrived at the Bikini Bottom General Hospital early that morning, Spongebob was still in rough shape. The doctor said Spongebob most likely had a run-in with a deep-sea predator, and the attack was too quick and too constant for the poriferan to regenerate. Not to mention there were several lacerations to his vital organs.

Still, sponges were pretty sturdy folk -- and all Spongebob really needed was a long rest in a controlled environment.

Squidward breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Great,” he said, awkwardly. “I, uh. Pay attention next time you get on the bus, alright? So I don’t have to come running after you.”

Spongebob laughed. “Okey-doke.”

The two then sat together in silence for an uncomfortable amount of time. All the while, Squidward wondered if perhaps his stupid, impulsive, not-really-a-love-confession-confession had actually gotten through to Spongebob. His hearts twisted up at just the thought.

“Hey, Squidward?”

The octopus looked up, and was very surprised to find splotches of red decorating the sponge’s cheeks.

“What?” said Squidward.

“My, uh, sea flowers have been dying lately,” said the sponge, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. “Maybe you could come by and we could share some gardening tips?”

A brilliant red blush planted itself on Squidward’s face. Then, he cleared his throat, and folded his arms across his chest. “Only if we get to watch a soap afterwards.”

Spongebob grinned. “Deal.”

Squidward found himself grinning, too, despite himself. “Deal.”

References:

“Deviltown” is loosely based off of the Devil Sea, near the Japanese coast.

I will likely be compiling these ficlets into one combined fic on ao3. I originally wasn't going to, but I definitely didn't expect so many requests. So keep an eye out for that, at some point.

[themadauthorshatter]

After the MONSTER that was Arc 2, time to wrap this up!

RED SCHOOL AU/UA STORY/HEADCANONS ARC 3!

This is hopefully going to wrap up Red School, so buckle in.

We begin in Rhian's 'office' as the two trios explain what happened: The Beast just burst through the trees and began attacking, out of the blue just like that.

He asks if there's anything else they noticed, and Cal mentions the red eyes and the fact he looked like he drowned. Rhian finds that odd because The Beast was never the best swimmer.

Tedros also mentions the incident before with Nicholas. Agatha vouches for him, saying she'd probably be dead, if Tedros didn't stop him, Sophie giving Agatha the stink eye as she inches closer to Cal, who fights a cringe.

Regardless, Rhian mutters how it can't be and tells them all to just be careful. Mare, however, notices his unease and knows he's BS-ing.

Either way, Rhian excuses them and watched them leave, though he does ask Agatha and Sophie to stay, to answer some questions. Tedros glances back at them as he leaves, giving Agatha 'please stay' eyes until Maven pats his back and says that, if he wants, he can watch Cal and Maven train, so he can help Maven kick Cal's ass next time they fight.

Back with the girls, Sophie despairs at her princes leaving, but Rhian clears his throat and asks if either have had anything to do with The Beast ending up in the state he's in. Agatha immediately objects, saying she couldn't have because her punishment in Good is a scolding and being locked in her room. He asks Sophie and she shakes her head; she just got her hair butchered and was on her merry way. Rhisn remarks that it's funny because a lot of the Nevers stating that The Beast disappeared around the same time Sophoe was sent to thevDoom Room, so either she's lying or someone else decided he needed to swim with the fishes. Someone more vain than she is.

Neither speaks on it, so Rhian excuses Sophie, though warns her to not do anything fishie with Cal; neither school has forgotten her misadventures with courting Tedros.

He tells Agatha to stay, however, because he wants to ask her about that question she asked Lucas, about leaving with the Silvers.

Semi-embarrassed, Agatha admits, that, yes, she did ask that question. Even if her only way out is a fairytale ending, maybe the Silvers are that ending, even if it's a loophole ending.

Rhian commends her for her cunning, but affirms that won't help. If she wants to go home, she'd better be ready to strap into and study like her life depends on it, because, in a fairytale, it will.

Agatha nods and asks him one question, just one this time, not a bunch of mini questions and one big question. If he knows how everyone's story ends, why not just tell them. Rhian shakes his head. He doesn't know when how storoes end, but if he told everyone theor endings, then the ending will change. They'll either strive for more than what their old ending is or become unmotivated and not strive at all.

With that, Agatha leaves, giving a glance to the Storian before doing so.

When she catches up with Sophie, Tedros, and the others, she finds ths boys having a three-way fight, Maven and Cal trying to roast each other while Tedros blocks with some magic and his sword.

Sophie watches them and drifts off into fantasy land while Mare and Agatha talk about what happened, since Sophie couldn't care less.

She explains that The Beast disappeared a little while back and no one's seen him until today. And people have been getting weird lately, which Mare gets confused by.

Even while he fights, Tedros explains that students have been getting red eyed and violent, attacking each other for, really, no reason.

Intrigued, Cal wonders if it's a apell gone wrong, even asking of their magic can get that powerful. Agatha shows him that they can do a lot of things, i.e. mogrify into animals, use spells to refurbish plants or for self defense. She's seen students do some crazy stuff, but admits that she doesn't think a fellow student could do it.

Maven muses that it all seems weird, but does admit that maybe the School Master has something to do it.

This grabs both Sophie's and Tedros's attention, Tedros noting that Agatha and Sophie were thought to be in the wrong schools, but really might not be a mistake(Sophie disagrees with this) and Sophie admits that if he put her and Agatha in the schools they're in-by 'accident'- maybe he got bored and cast a spell to throw in a new adventure, and brought the Silvers to join in on the fun.

Agatha's not certain, but knows one thing: they need to be careful.

They all agree and Tedros contemplates getting the jump on Cal, which leads to Cal grabbing him and throwing him to the ground, just enough to surprise him, nothing more.

As they get back into it, Agatha asks Mare a question, quietly so Sophie doesn't stop her: Is there a chance Mare can get Agatha and Sophie on their ship and take them away from the school? In return, she can help Mare get back home to her family.

Mare almost snaps at her, but Agatha explains that Mare isn't the only one that wants to go home.

She'll think on it, asking if Agatha can really help, and Agatha admits that she's not too sure, but she'll still try.

With an exchange of 'thank yous,' they watch Maven and Tedros duke it out with Cal both reffing and instructing them as Sophie watches, the two glad to be watching rather than participating because Cal is a brutal teacher.

From here, we get something of a time hump woth shenanigans like Evangeline and the other High House children observing the classes, Mare being hounded by Evergirls that offer her a change of makeup, because her foundation will clog her pores, Cal traching the Everbous more efficient combat techniques that won't get them in trouble, and even the main six hanging out, though Cal makes it clear to Sophie that he's flattered, but he's betrothed, so his hands are tied.

There is a close call when Agatha and Mare are having lunch together and run into Sophie, who's pissed at losing another prince, and not only realizes that Agatha's been cautious around Elara, but also that Mare and Cal are very close, for people betrothed to someone else. She pits two and two together and races off to a teacher, any one will do, but Agatha and Mare give chase, Mare being faster and catching up to Sophie and tackling her to the floor and practically shouting that Sophie had better not tell anyone, or else she'll be killed, along with herself, Agatha, both their families, and anyone remotely close to them, and being dead means no princes, so she'd better wise up.

Sophie agrees and they let bygones be bygones.

Mire time passes, and we get another red mist possessed fight with a wolf, in which Sophie jumps in to help, kind of, by mogrifying as a large bird to distract the wolf. They report it once again to Rhian, who's getting worried about the occurrence of this mist, but talks to Mare is a slightly altered version of this conversation you can read right here.

More time passes, and we get more Tagatha, some Marecal, some Evangeline being a bitch, some friendship, and, most importantly, Maven and Elara still talking about their plan, which is on hold because things are fishy and Elara's feeling a little less like herself. (Hmmmm?)

I know I'm rushing through all this, but trust me, you'll get why in a second.

Fast forward, and it's been about a month since the Silvers left Norta. Tibe, Cal, and Maven realize how long it's been and decide they need to head back.

Rhian understands, and offers them a proper send off to show the rest of Norta: a ball in the School for Good to show the unity of Norta and the School for Good and Evil. The rest of the High Houses, 1 child accompanied by 1 chaperone, have already been invited and preparations are already being made.

Tibe is incredibly flattered by this and thanks Rhian for such an act, though the School Master thanks Tibe in return for showing him what's beyond the Endless Woods.

From her place a few feet back, Mare notices Elara standing at the window and fighting a coughing fit as she stares back at Mare, red blood dripping from her nose.

I'm sure she's fine, BECAUSE WE CUT TO THE BALL!!!

It's just as extravagant as what happens in the or original comic, though at first the Silvers are weary until they warm up and relax.

We also get a sort of glare/stare off between Maven and Elara after she reads Mare's mind and Mare glaring at Tibe after his speech of peace and cooperation, and he simply gives her a look of 'what're you going to do about it?'

(Turns on a megaphone)WE DO NOT GET THAT SHIRTLESS WRESTLING MATCH BETWEEN CAL AND TEDROS! THIS IS A FORMAL EVENT, SO THEY SIMPLY TALK AND EXCHANGE NICETIES!(Puts the megaphone away.)

In a scene of set up and pay off, the sides begin to dance and have a good time, though Sophie tries dancing with Cal, but ends up her Hort, who actually emells nice for a change, but she's pretending not to notice because she wants to be with Cal.

Mare and Maven talk about this whole journey and admit it'll be a little sad to leave when the ball is over. Mare spots Agatha and Tedros in the fray, sees them smiling and happy, and agrees. It will be sad, but, as Maven points out, they're visitors. They always had to leave.

With Rgian and Tibe, Rhian asmits that this was possibly the most entertaining revel he's seen or had in a very long time. Tibe asks if it's two or three years, as a joke, and Rhian admits it's been half a century since the last GOOD revel, like one he'd go to and have all over again because of how fun it was.

It weirds Tibe out, but he notices something else that actually freaks him out: Elara's gone.

Back on the floor, Hort glares at Tedros as Lucas and Ptolemus have a muttered conversation about smelling smoke and Ptolemus thinking there's a bomb somewhere. Lucas disagrees; some of the students might be crazy, but none of them would openly try regicide.

The two spot the red mist, Hort noticing a second later. Rhian sees it, too, and shouts at all three to get away from the door.

Too late!

All three get possessed, Hort going into his Man-wolf form as Lucas and Ptolemus simply decide to rip and tear EVERYONE IN SIGHT.

Tedros tries taking care of Hort, but gets yeeted in the process, as Cal takes on Lucas and Evangeline tries to snap Ptolemus out of it.

The entire ballroom goes to shit with students and Silvers going off on each other as the red mist possesses them. Cal, Maven, and Mare are all fighting for their lives and wondering what the hell is going on, but quickly deduce that this is what's been bothering the school since a while ago.

Now why aren't Tibe and Rhian doimg anything? They're fighting they're own fight, Rhian with his magic and Tibe with his Burner ability; he was going to use hus sword, but Rhian told him not to because they couldn't have a body count.

Tibe demands to know if Rhian had anything to do with this and Rhian snaps if it looks like he did, gesturing to the students with wide arms and a panicked look.

Getting overwhelmed, the trio decide, very reluctantly to make a break for it, getting stopped by Ptolemus and Hort.

Good thing Evangeline decudes to be a good person and lend a hand before they attack her instead.

Cal shouts for her to come with, but Evangeline yells back that he'd better not die because he wouldn't run.

They leave just as they see Evangeline get swarmed by red mist possessed Silvers and students.

Agatha, Sophie and Tedros did escape, but it's not shown so we build tension😈

The RQ trio run out and get seperated, Cal chased by Lucas, a strongarm, and Hort, Maven chased by a couple wolves, and Mare chased by Elane, the coven, and Sonya.

We cut back to Rhian and Tibe, the former noting the fact that the mist is moving faster than he thought, and is stronger than before, as he heals a student who got knocked out cold. Tibe asks where his sons and Mare are, but Rhian says they should be fine. They're capable and are close with each other.

Tibe agrees and asks what they should do, seeing what's becoming of the students and Silvers. Rhian states that there's no time to get to his office, so he needs Tibe to be his shield as he heals as many prople as he can.

Tibe asks what's in the office, but we cut to Cal, before we get the answer. He's running through the halls of Good, and avoiding any runners(I know they're called zombies, but when I think 'zombie' I think of walkers from the Walking Dead, and these mofo's don't walk that much) he can, hiding behind walls and in classrooms to do so; it bugs the hell out of him, but he's not beating up any females and schoolchildren.

When the runners are gone, he slips down the hall and scoffs at the fact that almost everything he's looking at is candy and is both insane and a hazard, especially when he sees that bits and pieces of the wall are missing. (Really wonder which Evergirl did that one?)

Cal sneaks down more halls, but stops when he hears someone running down the next hall, crouching behind a wall. The footsteps slow and stop, also behind the wall.

After a minute, and with a head shake, Cal sparks up his hand and shouts as he wheels around the wall.

Maven yelps and falls back, covering his head; 6'3" of pure muscle with a killer instinct and fire powers, you'd have to have balls made of an allot made of iron, steel, and tungsten to not be afraid that jumping out at you from behind a corner.

They see that neither has the evil red eyes and reunite, hugging and sayimg they're glad the other's safe before asking where Mare is. Maven thought she was with Cal and Cal thought she was with Maven.

Good thing I bring up Mare because she's sprinting around the corner, leading Beatrix, Anadil, Tristan and Nicholas down the hall. No time for reunions because Lucas and Dot are right behind them, Dot casting chocolate onto the floor so no one can run while Lucas harpoons anyone he sees.

Yeah, time to go.

Like before, the students are unfortunately left behind, but this time, when they run up to Merlin's Menagerie, it's Mare who wants to go back and help them, but Maven pulls her outside as Cal slams and welds the door shut.

She yells that they could have saved them, but Maven argues that there wouldn't have been time.

They're all silent for a second, about to shake off what happened, but all get defensive again when they hear a twig snap, Cal holding out a blazing hand as he demands for whoever's out to show themself.

SURPRISE!!! The SGE trio is alive, though Tedros has some scratches from Hort on hus arm and chest.

They reunite again, glad everyone's alright, including Sophie, who gets a, 'Yay, you're alive🙄, happy to see you, too, now stay focused' from Cal as they see what's become of the school.

Yeah... Everything is shit, but as they qonder what the next plan of action should be Maven notices a bunch of red lights appearing in the School Master's tower, which Mare points to, and they agree they need to find a way inside.

They sonewhat argue on who should go, noting the airship/blimp/whatever aircraft available used to bring the other High House children and the fact the SGE trio can mogrify, but before they get a solid plan, runners burst outside, forcing them to run towards the aircraft.

Cal and Tedros fall vack every now and again to keep the runners back, buying them a couple minutes at most, but Maven runs into Mare, who's standing with a look of pure fear and despair on her face. The airship is too far for them to reach and is getting mauled by stymphs, who shred it and tear it down.

Thank goodbess Agatha comes up with a new plan by leaping off the roof and grabbing a stymoh, which has some rope caught on it. She makes it crash back onto the roof and saddles up-though, it'smore bare-backing here- as she explains they can ride the stymphs to the tower. Maven shouts that she's out of her mind, but Mare's on board because they have no other options and more stymphs are coming, some being normal and hollow eyed while the rest are pissed and red eyed.

Tedros kicks back a mist possessed Ravan and agrees as he and Cal race toward the rest of the group.

So there are three stymphs, which lead to them forming groups of two, and before Sophie can dream again, Agatha grabs her, pulls her onto a Stymph and takes flight, Mare and Maven following and shouting for Cal and Tedros to hurry up because theirs is taking off without them.

They jump for it and while Tedros manages to get on its back, but Cal isn't as lucky, instead having to grab its claw/foot and hope for the best.

His job's about to become harder because Hort, still in Man-Wolf form, leaps off the menagerie and bites onto Cal, around and slightly above his ankle.

Cal shouts and almost lets go before Tedros grabs his wrist. Cal apologizes abd kicks Hort off him, which not only makes Hort fall, but also makes the bite worse than it already is.

Don't worry, Hort lands safely on a tree a greenie summoned and got back inside the school.

The group makes it a good distance toward the tower, but get ambushed by mire red mist possessed stymphs that make them crash through a window on a lower level of the tower.

Everyone gets up and gets their bearings, but quickly have an 'oh shit' moment when they see the bite Cal got. They all wonder if he's going to get possessed, but Tedros doesn't think so, having seen how people get possessed, which is by the host 'giving' the red mist by making the person "inhale" the mist, and by inhale I mean the mist goes up their nose and into their mouth and down their throat, which leads to their possession.

Mare backs his play, having seen the same happen with Nicholas and Tristan, and they conclude that Cal's safe, as long as he doesn't bleed out.

Mare acts quickly and tears off parts of her dress to use as a bandage until they can get a proper healer, and Tedros flips out at the fact she's Red; Hort scratched her up too, and when Tedros asked earlier, she simply replied that it wasn't hers.

Regardless, Maven and Mare help up Cal and continue towards the tower until they reach Rhian's office, Cal and Tedros staying behind as lookouts so Sophie, Agatha, Mare, and Maven progress and see what or who is causing this all to happen.

Surprise, it's Elara, who's über possessed and writes with the Storian as it tries continuously to get away.

Mare's surprised by the fact Elara's been possessed, but is still surprised to see the Storian moving of its own accord.

They quickly form a plan, and convince a very disturbed Maven, who agrees, despite his instincts telling him not to because that's his mother and he still loves her.

They plan to dogpile her, but Cal and Tedros get attacked by Dovey, who's also possessed. Cal may has standards, but Tedros kicks Dovey's feet out from under her before they rush into the office, Cal limping a little.

It gets everyone else's attention and Mare and Tedros got right into attack mode. Too bad she deflects them like flies and casts spells and Maven, Sophie, Cal, and Agatha, to subdue them.

Elara, possessed, tells her to stop, because they're injured enough to do nothing, so Dovey simply magics them all to the floor.

Mare asks who this is, the person that isn't Elara, and why they're doing this.

Rhian, who the spirit(who we all know is Rafal, though his identity wouldn't be known as of yet) refers to as his darling, dimwitted brother, is foolish if he believes there can be such a thing as peace in times like these, where the Schools for Good and Evil can really be united and stay united with the introduction of the Silvers and their powers. Stories aren't meant to be peaceful, there must be discourse, and there can't always be happy endings.

Tedros argues that for every Good ending, there's an Evil ending that follows. Everything has to stay in balance, that's how it's always been.

Rafal scoffs and tells him he's more of a fool than he realized, if that's really how he thinks.

Maven's turn to ask a question, out of panic and emotions: Why Elara, of all people?

Rafal admits that he's glad Maven asked and leaves Elara's body and possesses him instead, which is painful.

'Maven' stands and Rafal explains that with the students and the Silvers of Norta, he had a lot of people to choose from, from the broken and empty Maven to the one-tracked thinker that is Cal to vain, selfish, beautiful Sophie to lying, prideful, foolish Tedros to Agatha and Mare, who are both eager and desperate to return to the dirt piles they called home, possessing each of them as he explains before returning to Elara, who tries crawling away before she's possessed again.

Rafal explains very sharply that the Queen was the best candidate for his plan, having seen how power hungry and rutheless she is, and sneers that he had tried to reach his goodie two shoes brother, but the two trios kept screwing it up for him.

Mare asks if he's going to kill them, and Rafal uses Elara's whisper ability to torture Mare into silence before her raises a hand, finger and palm filling with black magic as he dare her to guess.

With a quick apology to Maven, Cal tackles Elara/Rafal to the ground, and Dovey prepares to shoot a spell at him. Tedros shoves her just as Rafal backhands Cal off.

Before any more damage can be done, Maven pulls Elara off Cal, Rafal knocking him back with magic. Mare shoots some lightning at him, demanding he return the storian(he'sbeen holding it this whole time), as Cal and Maven stand with flaming hands, and their battle begins.

Meanwhile, the SGE trio deal with a possessed Professor Dovey, who cries at them that she's sorry and how they need to run as she casts a spell at them, one they dodge in time before anyone gets singed.

Thinking quickly, Agatha tells Tedros to give her and Sophie time, to defend them with his word, since he isn't the best with magic.

He does so, though Dovey fights back barehanded.

Seeing this as life or death, and finally putting her Evil to good use, Sophie tells Agatha to stand back and sings, summoning wasps, locusts and hornets to the tower and whistling them attack Dovey.

Back with the RQ trio, Rafal uses magic to fight off Cal and Mare, throwing them into a wall before approaching a weak and slightly injured Maven, grabbing his throat and picking him up, calling him weak and saying it's no wonder Tibe chose Cal to seat the throne and not a child like Maven.

Mare, who's been sneaking forward, grabs Rafal and knees him before electrocuting him(don't worry, Maven's fine). He casts a spell to the wall, grabs the cape Elara's been wearing, and magics out of there instead.

Mare gives chase with Agatha, Cal, and Maven behind her; Sophie and Tedros stay behind to keep Dovey busy.

The chase ends on the roof with Agatha catching up to Mare to assist.

Rafal ain't having that and uses Elara to control Agatha, who casts numerous spells at her and chases her around the roof before one hits her in the chest, sending her to the edge of the roof.

Cal calls for them both, but Rafal smirks at him as Dovey snatches him and pulls back in the tower.

Back on the roof, Rafal watches Mare dangle a little and saying she would have made a lovely fairytale, if only she hadn't interfered. He then grabs and commands Agatha to finish the job and make Mare fall, tightening his grip when she refuses.

Through the possession, Agatha cries and apologizes, but Mare does, too, because she electricutes them both, making Agatha and Elara fall back, amd forcing Rafal to drop the Storian.

Mare falls back and grabs for it, Agatha screaming and falling after her, much to the shock of Cal, Maven, Tedros, Sophie, and Dovey.

They both fall, disappearing into the mist for a second before the mist fades and the two rise, Agatha having mogrifed into a condor or a vulture as she carries Mare, who holds her claw and she holds the Storian.

They pick up Elara as she begins to come to before landing in Rhian's office, reuniting with everyone, and crying while doing so, but the boys won't admit it.

Outside, the mist falls. Silvers, Reds, Evers, and Nevers all drop and shake out of their haze. In the ballroom, Hort shifts back into a human and groans as he pushes himself up, Rhian handing him his cloak and saying he's alright, and will be okay. Tibe watches everyone come to and turns to Rhian, who says he knew they could do it, referring to Cal, Maven, Mare, Sophie, Agatha, and Tedros, and explains that regardless of which side it is, or who wins, there's always a happy ending.

Back with the two trios, they stop hugging and watch Elara cough and gag, red smoke spewing out of her nose and mouth until it takes the shape of Rhian, who charges at all of them.

The Storian stops him and, in its own words, tells him to get lost.

As the sin rises, Rafal vanishes, though retreats into the woods, leaving them all in shock and awe.

We get something of a montage of the group reuniting with Tibe and Rhian, everyone getting healed, the group hanging out in the infirmary, even as Hort apologizes to Val for biting him, but Cal tells him it's gine and shouldn't worry about it, Tibe commending Cal, Mare, AND MAVEN for their efforts, which is a shicker for both Maven and Mare, the Storian reporting to Rhian, and finally, the group, Tibe, Rhian, and Dovey confenting Elara, who's in Silent Stone manacles.

When told to explain, she states she was possessed, that jealousy had gotten the better of her. It started off as pleasant conversation, but soon, the voice in her own head started speaking of something that she had to refuse. Little did she know, Rafal is a narcissistic ass and took control of her. Rhuan asks what she means, and she responds that she remebered him talking about balance and the futility of appealing to both sides, speaking of how his brother was a fool and was never good at learning his lessons.

Rhian tries to pull the 'I don't know this spirit' card, but Sophie agrees, saying Rafal spoke of Rhian very poorly when they confronted him.

Slightly ashamed, Rhain admits that, yes, the spirit was his brother, who lost the war and died, and yes. By war he means the one that took place centuries ago.

He had tried to keep the spirit under wraps by using spells and charms around the school, but figures that something must've happened to one of the charms that allowed Rafal's spirit to return.

The gears in Cal's head start turning, but Rhian has Elara freed, much to the dismay of all the fandom, and commends all of the group for their bravery and efforts, saying the Woods is indebted to the Silvers, though more specifically Cal, Maven, and Mare, who admits that Tedros, Agatha, and Sophie deserve some credit, too, as they would've been minced meet without them.

Tibe thanks them, and says in return they can have anything they want, excluding Cal or Maven or Mare(pulls out the megaphine again for Sophie) BECAUSE THEY'RE BETROTHED(puts the megaphine away).

Agatha's about to take Tibe's offer amd ask if he can take her and Sophie home or to Norta, but stops when she sees Tedros struggle to keep smiling, Sophie waiting for the final blow that they're leaving Tedros and Cal behind forever, and Mare, who's just waiting to see where this goes.

She asks if they can keep writing to each other, seeing as how the Silvers are leaving tomorrow.

Tibe and Rhian agree, Rhian admitting he can show them a technique for sending letters, but on the condition that only Tedros, Agatha, and Sophie can write letters and no one else.

They agree.

Time jump to a creak as the group hangs out one last time, Mare and Agatha sitting on a log as they watch Sophie find wild flowers to press for her letters and the boys just goofing around, Tedros and Maven swimming as Cal struggles to get in the water, though to be fair, Maven is knee deep in the water.

Mare asks Agatha what made her change her mind about taking the trip back, seeing as how all she wanted was to go home.

Agatha sighs and ecplains that she still does, but, having heard what Rhian said, she now fears for what would happen if she and Sophie left. The other Evergirls aren't the best with magic and if the schools are taken over again, the Silvers aren't there, and Agatha and Sophie are in Gavaldon, they're all basically fucked. Besides, it would actually hurt Tedros's feelings, which Agatha admits as she watches him and Maven drag and throw Cal into the water and laugh as he scurries out, screeching at the top if his lungs.

Mare notices and asks Agatha if she has athing for Tedros, having noticed their little glances at each other and how Tedros gets when he's with her.

Agatha, flustered, counters Mare gets the same way with Cal and Maven, so she's no better.

Speaking of Tedros, Cal, and Maven, Mare and Agatha watch as Cal carries a flailing Maven over his shoulder and wrangles Tedros into his other arm before throwing them into the water, Tedros not really minding, but Maven screaming because the water's freezing.

Mare admits that she's pretty sure Cal's going to miss having Tedros around, at least, but Agatha reassures her that if Mare's a Red with powers in the Endless Woods, then anything's possible. The SGE is for fairytales, after all.

Time jump to the next day. Mare visits her room and falls back onto her bed, letting it swallow her up so she's stuck when someone walks into her room.

Agatha asks if she needs help and Mare accepts, letting Agatha pull her up, before the two hug; they've only known each other alfor a little more than a month, but they're friends, damn it.

Outside the school, everyone exchanges their goodbyes, some crying and some trying not not to cry because Silvers don't cry.

Tedros plays it cool when he says goodbye to Cal, holding out his hand and leaving his other hand resting on the hilt of his sword, claiming that he's looking forward to the next time they meet, so he can kick Cal's ass next time they spar.

Cal, upon seeing how shaky Tedros's hand is and how glassy his eyes are, ruffles his hair instead and reminds him that they can still write to each other. That's enough to make Tedros crack and hug Cal, who obviously hugs back.

Sophie says goodbye as well, to both Cal and Maven, saying she hopes they're happy with their betrotheds. Maven asks if she's finally got the point of what betrothed means, but Sophie reminds him to be careful, as she could always send a spider in their letters. Cal remarks that it wouldn't be very Good of her, but does tell her to stay out of trouble, as much as she can, at least. Sophie only folds her arms and dares THEM to try being good when attending the School for Evil.

Tibe and Rhian exchange their goodbyes as well, Tibe thanking the School Master for his hospitality and Rhian thanking Tibe for sending the Swift and the Eye a while back; he can't remeber the last time things were so entertaining at the school.

The Silvers all take thier seats in their carriages and wave goodbye to the students and Rhian, though Tedros, Sophie, and Agatha sort of run after the carriage Cal, Maven, Mare, and Evangeline are in, because they're teens and will miss the presence of their new friends.

They wave back, but Cal's smile drops as he gets to thinking about what Rhian said, about the charms around the school. As Evangeline, Mare, and Maven talk, Cal starts putting the pieces together and the realization he has makes him feel sick to his stomach.

When they board the ship, he tells Mare and Maven immediately:

When they first arrived, the Swift or Eye must've moved a charm, which allowed Rafal to take over.

Rafal appearing was a direct result of the Silvers.

Maven peers over Elara's shoulder to see her smirking at him, whispering to him that they need to talk again, but this time it's more important.

The three stare at the Endless Woods as they leave, the scene zooming in on the woods until we find an engraved rock on the ground, which Sophie picks up.

She hears a whisper in her ear as Agatha asks if she's coming back to the school or what, Sophie looking between her and the rock she found.

AND THAT ENDS RED SCHOOL! Holy shit! I did not expect this to take as long as it did, but I just turned a 100 page comic into a full fledged book, so of course this is long as hell.

Ibrelly hope you guys enjoyed this, I never thought I'd be doing this and get it done. And if Victoria Aveyard, Soman Chainani or Joel Gennari are reading this, THIS WAS JUST A FAN THING BECAUSE I GET BORED WITH MYSELF, PLEASE DON'T BE MAD AT ME!!!😫🙏

Anyway, thank you so much for reading, amd I hope you enjoyed!!!!!

[teacup-baphomet]

G/t Drabble (Crash landed on a hostile planet trope but NOT via the a tiny vulnerable human in a planet of mean powerful alien bigs route)

tw: a bit of censored cursing. Uh. I’m not sure what else. Maybe broaching of sensitive tops such as sexuality and religion. But not really. Mostly it’s just rlly dumb word play/lame humor and a confused alien being confused (and kinda freaked/troubled due to the confusion? you’ll see if you read it i guess). there is some sad lorg boi times. idk. no romantic relationships. just a shaky friendship is forming between a crash-landed big-arse alien (a human! *gasp*  i woulda never guessed something as vile as that o: ) and one of the much smaller, very much not human locals. most want to kill the poor dude who got stuck on this planet of hostile lil guys who think he’s a monster and immediately decide they much off him asap. so like having this one ally is kinda important to him. But it’s hard. because. lots reasons rlly. culture differences. the language tech can only do so much. the size diff creates definite issues because trust is hard in general. and trusting a big being that could easily cause havoc on your planet mostly just cuz he /seems/ nice is not a very good foundation... there is much to learn between the two before they can be truly good frens. so uh good luck to them lol *raises glass* I mean. I don’t think I’ll ever write these two again. but I’m sure they’ll end up good friends. probably.

Anyway without further adieu, here have a disappointment (read: attempt to be creative but i’m kinda lazy tbh and still kinda bitter I can’t draw for more than like 10 minutes before I start spacing out :/ )

"We are called humans or the scientific name is homo sapiens" spoke the large alien, Lyle.

"Homo sapiens? That is rather long, is it not? Why is a "scientific name" even a thing? Why would that be necessary? Scientific name versus what kinda name? Emotional name? Why are these science names two words? Seems annoying. What is wrong with just calling yourselves simply homos? Or something else just as nice and concise. Straight to the point if you will. Probably. I... Uh.. I obviously don't know what exactly is the purpose of a scientific name as i already implied... Sooo..." The much shorter – and much scalier- native being (called Torrynts) awkwardly looked off the side to stare at the plain, blank, siding of their dilapidated, isolated house as if it were the most interesting thing in the entire vicinity. Which it wasn’t of course. There was a f***ing alien 15 times their size only a few them-sized lengths way…

 Lyle gave his new comrade – and only friend on this gawdforsaken planet that mostly wants him dead- th pondering, and possibly ironically, rather colourfully scaled Torrynt by the name of Kyvlar a bemused look, bordering on coy.

"Huh. 'Straight' to the point you say?" He paused with a small snort. "Well, my not-so-statuesque friend, do I got news for you~"

Kyvlar suddenly blanched, giving a Lyle a look that was like a knife to the heart while blurting out. "Wait, wait, wait! Hold up! We? There are more than one of you? Here? On this planet? Were you just a distraction the whole time. Oh... Oh no.... Have we really been victim a secret homo invasion this whole time! I-"

 Their panicked monologue was interrupted by a most horrendous noise. Like a slowly dying tornado with the hiccups or something.

"STOP. Stop I-I can't. I can't. This is too much much!" Spoke Lyle with his hand covering the bottom half of his  and his eyes scrunched shut.

 'Welp,' thought the Torrynt, 'This is the end. This is when I die. I should have known better than to immediately put my trust in such an enormous obviously dangerous specimen. Ho-'

 Kyvlar’s dramatic internal speech was interrupted when the alien surprised them by uncovering the his face, revealing a huge grin. ‘They weren't upset? Huh?’ The Torrynt blinked owlishly at the human in confusion.

 "Sh*t, bite-size (Kyvlar noticeably paled at the impromptu nickname not 100% the foreign joking tone, well it would have been noticeable to someone their size at least), I know you don't mean to, context-wise, but you reminded me of my great aunt Karen when my Uncle Todd and Uncle Copper decide to have their friends over along with relatives for a gatherin'."

Plastering on a faux distraught look and blatantly mocking tone, he  continue with exaggerated hand gestures. "Oh no, it's the...the...," he paused with snort, "... the homo invasion... No, no, no... Not here... not in this... this good, Christian neighborhood. Aren't just two of them enough? Oh woe is me!" The alien dropped the mocking tone and smirked towards the smaller being. "Heh. Good ol' great aunt Karen could never remember Uncle Todd was Jewish and so was the majority of that neighborhood.... It’s where my Uncle Todd was raised actually…"

 The said smaller being just stared blankly at the homo-no-human they supposed as just “homo” meant something else, they weren’t sure what else, beyond just something else.

 "Uhhm. Wh-what? U-Uhm, so what exactly is “homo” then? And what’s Christian? And Jewish too. What’s that? Are... Are those other types of -uh- intelligent, sentient creatures on your planet? Y-you know, b-beside hom-er-h-humans? Or are these subtypes of humans? What kinda are you? What is a great aunt? or Uncle? Does the great indicate a larger size? Oh gawd, a-aren't you humans b-big enough regularly? Oh... W-wait. O-or are you a great- uhm- great aunt, was it? E-er, g-great something? Ohhh. Zyntall (Torrynt swear). I'm sooo confused r-right now... " The timid tiny being, sighed in frustration before their eyes snapped open wide in a panic, and they did an immediate one-eighty with their behavior, and it was off all their previously trust, as wavering as it was, vanished in an instant, squeaking out a quick "sorry. oh, Z-zyntall... I'm so-so-sooo sorry. I-I hope I d-didn't offend y-you or anyth-thing... p-please, oh please, don't hurt me" while gazing everywhere except towards the much larger alien, hoping desperately the 'bite-size' nickname was just a bad joke...

 Clearly they not only didn't get what so hilarious about the whole thing but also thought he was a monster prone to violence – still. Lyle sighed, all the mirth that was previously in his expression draining out of him leaving him with an uncomfortable grimace on their face. How disappointing... They really wish there was another human here to share in the jesting. But alas, that was not meant to be. At least as far as they knew there was no "homo invasion" in the making. Lyle wasn’t naïve. He knew humans were easy to slip into a gray moral state, at best. The role of villains at worst. And many of his kind would likely take advantage of a planet full of tiny, vulnerable people. Lyle couldn’t help but inwardly cringe at the thought, getting nervous about something that wasn’t an issue. At least now. Currently, human-wise, it was just him on this distant planet. And as far as he knew, no one - well, no other human at least- had any clue where they were. It probably just seemed he simply disappeared. Never to be seen again most likely. Trapped on this random alien planet in scenario that is akin to some sort of a personal hell of sorts.

'Wow. Hello, major depressive episode that’s making me overly dramatic. I haven't seen you since I was - what - eighteen?' thought Lyle regretfully. Calling this planet a personal hell was probably a bit over the top. But still, he couldn’t even seem to keep the trust of his single native ally. It only adds to his feelings of lonely isolation. And he feared his lonely angst will only get worse and worse. But only time will tell.

Giving a small sigh, he mentally prepped himself to try and get back his small friend’s trust. At least he was able to laugh for a wee bit earlier. It had been so long since he had done such. It was nice. Hopefully next time it will not lead to a backtracking in his attempted friendly ships with an open local, or even worse, a hostile local. The little laser guns that native being had stung like a b*tch. It reminded him when he got bit a couple times by some fire ants during a vacation as a child.

-----------

So yeah these were rando improvised characters made on the spot.

But Lyle is a guy (he/him. He’d be chill with they/them too)

And Kyvlar is… a Torrynt. So like they/them I guess. Torrynts don’t have genders. Like at all. I guess they hermaphroditic (intersex if talking by human terms but not really as they are capable of reproduction and they aren’t human so… I dunno… Not even sure if hermaphrodite is a useful term. As idk if hermaphroditic animals, in nature, are capable of reproduction… I don’t think so? But I’m not sure tbh…). There is no variants like there are with human “sex”. And male/female concepts are 200+% foreign to these wee reptile-like aliens (albeit warm-blooded minded, so perhaps more draconian than reptilian idk. Also aliens being described as reptilian gives me hives due to a conspiracy theory that is like super bigoted actually n’ stuff. Very yikes. Don’t want to talk it about it rlly…). Their reaction would def be “wtf. That’s the weirdest sh*t ever” to such a thought as male n female binary dynamics & whatnot. No exceptions. They’d be like why a lot of you guys limiting yourself because of whether or not you are a potential offspring vessel or not. I don’t understand.

So Yeah. Uh. Anyways.

Their conversation about this prolly (or close to this):

Lyle: Hi. I’m Lyle. Just some random dude form Earth I guess.

Kyvlar: a random dude what?

Lyle: uh. I’m a dude. I guess I meant that I’m a boy though dudes don’t really have to be boys I think. But not to derail too much… Yeah. I’m a man/guy/boy/brosef, whatever you wanna call the male gender. Please not by brosef actually, heh. Anyway. Yep. A boy. That is what I am. Uh. How about you. I can just tell… you ….you have uhm two legs. Oh damn. Wait. That sounded so stupid. I wouldn’t assume your gender or anything. I just… You don’t look exactly human so..uh. UGH. Nevermind. I don’t even know where I was going with that... Heh. ANYWAY, so yeah what’s your gender is what I’m trying to say. Sorry I’m awkward as f***. I’m not used to socializing much. Been doing deep space sh** on my own for a few years now and.. uh.. yeahhhh….

Kyvlar: *stares blankly*

Lyle: Uh. Yeah. So. A Gender? Do you, uhm, have one? Or…????

Kyvlar: Uh. I think so? I mean I’m mostly a day-by-day I’ll figure it out then type but I, I really want be able to fix my home up. I want to learn to cook. Kinda suck at it now. Uhm. I guess… Uh. I should probably help you get on good terms with my people so they stop trying to kill you. You seem nice n’ stuff… so yeah. There’s that. I could use a little more purpose in my life. Not to-

Lyle: wait. Huh? What are you talking about? Are you talking about an agenda?

Kyvlar: Yes????

Lyle: *snorts* I didn’t say an agenda. I said a gender. As in A. Gen. Durr. Like are male or female or maybe something off the typical binary track??

Kyvlar: Uh. Er. Huh??? I, I’m so confused right now…

Lyle: Hooo boy. I’m so not prepared for this discussion at all.

-----------

One of these days I’m gonna have a character that’s silver-tongue and smooth af and not some bumbling awkward doofus (*cough* like I am *cough*).

[doctor-steele]

I should hope you are not doing foolish things, Doctor. Pest cares for you, and I would hate to see him sad to have lost you. -Ranger

I apologize for my outburst. Pest, Nibbles and Pawn were able to talk me back to my senses. I’m not revealing anything because AM could see it, but we have a plan.

I have not checked the status in some time. Are there any updates?

[faecaptainofdreams]

For context, see here: www.deviantart.com/foxdragonlo… ---------------------------------------------------------- Peter's bare footsteps were nearly undetectable in the late hour. The facility slept for the most part, but the youngest Avenger was restless, and somehow sensed he wasn't the only one. Peeking around the corner, he spied the master of the mystic arts cape-less, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the living room. His eyes were closed, his fingers in a peculiar position. Peter gazed at him for some time, still silent, caught in the crossfire of his mind's demands. Disturb Dr. Strange, or leave him be? He hated to burden others, but he had questions that needed answered. Also, was it unwise to sneak up on someone so powerful? What if-- "Peter Parker," he ushered calmly, eyes still closed. Peter leaped up and away from Stephen, his whole body wracking violently in his startling.        "UH! Oh -- GEEZE, whoa, okay...!" Stephen finally looked at Peter, watching him catch his breath and try to calm his nerves. His expression remained unchanging, and his demeanor as calm and somewhat dry as ever.       "Sorry, sorry I -- I didn't mean to disturb you..." "If you hadn't meant to disturb me, you wouldn't have been staring at me for so long."        "Well -- I mean, I guess I wasn't sure if I wanted to disturb you yet, is...what I'm trying to say..." He only got more shy, appearing to shrink with guilt. "Hm. It's fine. I was wrapping up was it was." As Stephen rose to his feet, Peter stammered in place.        "O-oh, do -- do you want me to go? I can leave you alone, I was just--" "No, it's okay." The older man crossed past Peter casually. Even with his attempt to reassure him, the boy was still riddled with guilt. He looked around, uncertain what to do with himself, absentminded to Stephen gingerly taking a pre-made cup of tea from one of the further-off tables and walking back to the softer sitting area with it. He lowered himself onto the couch, taking a quiet sip from the cup. Peter merely watched him. "To be honest, that was a session not much-needed. My tea was too hot; I was passing the time." Warm brown eyes simply looked the spiritual master over in a long, contemplative silence. Stephen was patient, but still a tad dry. "...At the risk of sounding callous, I'm starting to wonder if I should have meditated someplace else." Peter snapped out of it and shook his head, raising a hand towards him in defeat.       "NO no, no! I'm -- I -- I'm still...trying to make up my mind, I'm sorry..." Stephen pretended to ignore him and took another sip from his little cup, partly in an effort to give him time. "Mm... Camomile. Basic, but aligning." Icy blue eyes drifted up to meet Peter's uneven gaze. "I understand spiders are nocturnal. Trouble sleeping?"        "Oh, a-actually, jumping spiders are diurnal, and I'm mostly influenced by jumping spider DNA. But there's some wolf in there too, and those are nocturnal, which is why I can see in the dark, but it doesn't make sleeping hard. Well, sometimes I don't sleep well, but not because of the wolf spider. It's...uh..." "..." Peter swallowed, and then hissed to himself under his breath as he looked away submissively.       "Shut up, Peter..." While the younger man rubbed his face tiredly, Stephen finished his tea and set the cup down gently on the coffee table. "You came all this way, and have wasted time debating whether or not to do something. I feel I made the choice easy for you by allowing your presence to disturb me, and yet here you stand, still unable to make a decision."        "..." "... Come sit down," he ordered lowly, annunciating each word to show his patience beginning to peel away.        "OH! Right, okay..." Peter nervously stepped over and sat beside Stephen on the couch, legs tight together and arms rigid to the sides of his torso. His discomfort was understandable, but on an unspoken level, Stephen was caught between amusement and slight concern. Peter may have been more sensitive to the spiritual than he realized, but that was a topic for another day, Strange felt. "Why did you consider disturbing me?" Peter rubbed his hands over his thighs for a few moments, then finally surrendered. Sighing, he appeared to relax, though his nerves still held a small grudge.        "Okay, look... I was just wondering -- if it's not too much trouble, if you could...tell me something about death." At this, Stephen's brow fell a little heavier, but he wasn't upset.       "I-I know, kind of a...silly, and...complicated topic, but..." "I will be happy to answer any questions you have any way I can." Peter nodded stiffly.        "Thanks. Um... The thing is, is I don't...entirely know how to ask this question. Maybe you'll know what I mean when I say it; I have this bad habit of thinking things make sense in my head, but then when I say it out loud it sounds really stupid or people look at me funny, and...uh..." "You also have a bad habit of rambling."        "YES, I do! I'm sorry!" "And a bad habit of apologizing."        "...Yeah..." Stephen watched Peter carefully for some time. He admired this young man, and was no stranger to people being uneasy around him. Regardless, he hoped he could satiate him by simply being patient. "Your question?"        "Uh yeah, okay, here it goes. So...what is it? Death, I mean," he asked softly while looking up at his company. At this, Stephen tilted his head just a tad. His brow didn't furrow, but there was something unreadable in his studious stare.        "I know what it is, physically. I know that...your heart stops beating, and...your body shuts down, and it decays, but... That's just the science stuff. That's just...the physical thing." "I find it interesting that you died and returned from the dead, as so many people across the universe did just a few years ago, but are just now asking this question." Peter nodded, slouching.        "Yeah. Weird, I know. But..." "But now, you're mourning." This statement struck a nerve, and Peter recoiled in an effort to stifle the despair that crept in him. Stephen softened. "Marcus's passing is indeed, very sad. I know this isn't the first time you've experienced death of loved ones, and for the record, it's not unusual to not have questions until the "final straw," if you will." Peter's voice broke as he held back his emotions. He was visibly weaker now.        "That's the th-ing, is I barely knew him at a-ll... I spent one day with him, and...I'm...SO torn up about it." He swallowed something dry.       "It's been two days, and I still j-ust can't get this question out of my head." Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself.       "I guess the whole 'what is death' thing is really just...a broad spectrum. You're right, this was the final straw," Peter said hoarsely. "I want to understand why death exists, I want to understand why we have to go, where we go, and all that insane crap with Thanos. I mean -- how we died, how I died, and I can't remember anything between before then and when I woke up again. If I couldn't remember anything, does that mean when we die we are literally gone? Is that it? I mean is there really nothing else after all of this...?" Stephen took in a deep breath through his mouth, and exhaled it through his nose as he sat forward, clasping his scarred hands together thoughtfully. "Well," he uttered softly, "I see there were multiple reasons I was meant to be here at this time." He looked at Peter from the side. "I sense you are prepared to sit here for a long time to get your answers." Peter nodded, now appearing a little stronger.        "I am. I can't... I can't keep wondering, and...I figure...you were the best person to ask..." "Perhaps. Either way, I will do my best. And, if I am successful, you won't have to endure for long." Peter sat stern and patient while Stephen adjusted himself in place once more, turning to face Peter as much as possible. "To understand death, you must first understand life." There was a long silence between them. Peter's eyebrows raised, but he said nothing. "...I'm waiting for a smart remark or a bracing sigh."        "Oh, I -- I don't...have either of those, hah..." Stephen smiled briefly. "Good. So, Peter, what do you know about life?"        "..." "Why do you think we're here? What's man's purpose on Earth...?" Peter's eyes became more alert, voice raising in register.        "Oh, um... Well the thing I hear the most is that we're here to do good, that we're here to be good people, and... Okay, actually I guess that's about it, heh. Other than that, everyone always, just...says "I don't know," so..." "Ah, the old 'to do good' answer. A favorite among Western society in particular, though universally you can see it in every culture and major religion. One of the most famous and simple examples is the Hindu concept that bad actions in one life will result in reincarnation of a lower animal. In modern Christian teachings, it's taught that not following a path of Christ will leave one in eternal damnation. There's always an afterlife price to pay for not "being good," you see." Peter nodded, eyes wide and somewhat uneasy. Strange observed him, slowly allowing one of the corners of his mouth to curl into a small, clever smile. "But you don't believe in those teachings, do you." Peter shook his head in a tiny motion. He looked very tired.        "Not...really... They just...don't make sense to me." "That's because they don't make sense at all," he retorted in an overly-factual manner. He had Peter's full attention. "All religion is flawed, because one living person cannot possibly understand all of the spiritual universe. More to the point, the books were written by people who wanted control over others, but I digress. My order knows about as much as there is possible to learn, and even then, most of everything around us remains mysterious by design. Now then, to recap, your answer to why we're here on Earth is "to do good," correct?" Peter nodded. "It's an inspiring and popular sentiment, but for the most part... It's crap." Peter hunched forward, air flushing through his nostrils suddenly in an effort to laugh without opening his mouth. His shoulders shook a couple of times; he truly didn't see that one coming.       "O-oh, hah hah...!" "Yes, we should try to be good people, and do good things, but to say that's all we're here for is a gross undermining of physical creation. For one thing, people have varying opinions of what "doing good" is or what it looks like. Those opinions vary too much, and you have war, not unlike the one we faced three years ago." Peter's smile dissipated, and he became more focused yet again. "I'll bet you live under the impression that life is complicated. In practice, yes, but in theory? No. The real reason we are alive and on Earth -- and listen closely..." Peter leaned in a little, holding his arms tensely. "... Is to experience." They sat in a bit of silence. Stephen observed Peter's quiet contemplation. Surprisingly, he didn't look overly confused, but it was clear the gears were turning in his head.       "...Okay..." "There is existence beyond the physical, Peter, you know this deep down. You watch me utilize it. In order to live, you must have a soul and its functioning systems in your body. When that soul leaves, the body cannot animate, and we die. When your heart stops beating, your heart chakra cannot pump through it. When you're organs shut down, your other gates cannot flow through them, and piece by piece your spirit cleaves from your body until it is cold, and you are returned to the universe you can't see in this flesh."        "Okay, this got really twisted..." Stephen couldn't help but to chuckle, unsurprised by the reaction. "Here's the thing. There is a god, a BIG god, but they're not some bearded white man in the sky punishing people they created and casting them into some pit of eternal despair -- which doesn't exist, by the way. Actual God conforms to no gender, or sex, or race or creed or recognizable being. They are nothing more than an amalgamation of light and guidance, and they do, yes, command the universe and are all-knowing." Peter began to calm, visibly interested in this little revelation. Stephen gave him a moment to absorb it, and then promptly continued. "Don't believe in God or anything spiritual?" He shrugged. "Doesn't matter. You worship lesser deities? Fine. You claim to follow God, but through Christianity or Islam or other religion? Well...that's a nice try, but you're doing it wrong. And ultimately, it still doesn't matter. For disassociation purposes, spiritualists like myself prefer to call God "All" or "Spirit," or just "Creator." I am partial to "Spirit."" Peter nodded again, still taking in the information.       "Okay..." "You with me so far?"        "I think so. But...what does this have to do with my questions?" "I'm...a little alarmed that you haven't put that together yet, but we're getting there." Peter had no comment. "The Spirit creates life, physical bodies, and while it's very real and mystifying to us, what most people don't realize is this is just about the absolute lowest vibrational plane of existence. The highest is indeed, Heaven, but Heaven isn't some pearly building with a bouncer at the front gate, deciding whether or not you get in. When you die, you either choose to go in or you don't, and if you want to leave, you can leave." Peter continued to listen, wordless and a little unreadable. "Heaven is all around us, just like the other limitless planes of existence. When we die, we are free to explore any and every plane. So that answers your one question."        "..." "Is there life after death."        "Oh! Right, yeah. Yeah, that -- that is an answer, yeah..." "You don't seem terribly convinced -- which isn't of concern to me, by the way, but I am interested in what you're thinking."        "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful, it's just...a lot." "It is."        "But it just...kinda leads me to part of that question; why don't I remember anything from the time I died?" "Ahh, yes, that was...a special case for everyone. I mentioned that life is propelled by the soul and unseen spiritual forces. We are all originally just souls, and we choose what form to come into life as. When we die, we return to the spiritual realms, and then if we wish, we can come back. So Hindus are right in that yes, you can reincarnate, but it's not based around your actions in life. You live, you die, the Spirit reviews your life with you, and the choice over what to do next is yours. You may come back a cockroach, or an ant, or a person, or tree or fish or whatever floats your boat, all in an effort to achieve a certain sect of goals." Peter raised a finger meekly.       "Dr. Strange?" "Hm?"        "I'm -- you're kinda losing me." Stephen raised a hand. "Be patient. I'm watering down a lot of information for you, here."        "How do you remember all this stuff?" "The same way you remember vast amounts of details regarding your own work and interests."        "... Oh... Yeah, that makes sense. It's just so weird...!" "It is, because hardly anyone really understands it. Let's slow down, and recap. So far, in short, I have told you that there is life after death, that Biblical God is a man-made construct, that hell doesn't exist, and that reincarnation is real, but doesn't adhere to Hindu standards. Are you back on track now?" Peter nodded big.        "Yes, I think so. So you're saying that this could be, like...my third or fourth life or something?" "Or your fiftieth, or your seven-hundred and thirty-second, or your two-thousand, eight-hundred and ninety-ninth life."        "...That's...awfully specific," he responded quietly. Stephen had no comment.        "So why can't I remember them? Why can't I remember being dead, or being other people? Or animals?" "Because being mortal means giving up infinite knowledge. I said we are here to experience, and one cannot have nor appreciate raw experience without a raw form. Being alive is about learning, changing, and again, experiencing. We like to believe that people who do terrible things face a terrible afterlife, but this simply isn't so. Everyone pays for their actions in living, and their memory to the flesh is tainted forever by their actions. But their soul moves on, and they start over again."        "Huh... That is a little disappointing, not gonna lie." "I felt the same way at first, trust me. We learn how to judge, and differ right from wrong, and how to learn at all. And it's not just like this here on Earth, it's every planet with life."        "So... Huh, okay, so is it possible that I could've like, been a Titan once? Or some other alien?" "The truth? ...I have no idea." Peter looked surprised, tilting his head back with a very understandable expression. "Yes, I know, hard to believe, but I also said earlier that I don't know everything; no one does. However, I don't see any real reason why that wouldn't be possible."        "Yeah, 'cos you said we can go anywhere when we die, so--" Stephen nodded more enthusiastically, smiling with a hint of pride to know that Peter was really listening and learning. "Receiving knowledge, trial and error, injury, healing, never having the promise of tomorrow, and coping with the unknown is the real legitimate reason we're here. The physical plane is a place for souls to go when they want to experience this level of hardship. To put frankly, this is the hardest thing you will ever endure; living, and much of the time, it is hard because of those around you, and because of your own actions. There is no Satanic entity to blame for your misgivings; you must own up to everything you do wrong, and hold those around you accountable."        "That makes sense to me. ... So... When we die after having lived some lives before, is all the stuff in the universe new to us again, or...?" "When we die, all of our universal knowledge, and the memory of all our past lives are returned to us. And once we come back into the living plane, that information is removed again, and so on and so forth, forever." Peter turned away, leaning his elbows on his knees, rubbing his face and eyes somewhat tiredly.        "That's...way too much to process, okay..." "Like I said, this is just the watered-down version."        "So like..." Peter looked up again, but kept his eyes squinted.        "...So dying..." "Mhm?"        "... OKAY so what is death? Ahh hah hah," Peter wheezed slightly in sheepish laughter. "This is what I've been leading up to. What you choose to do with everything I've told you is up to you, as is whether or not you feel it's important. Death is nothing more than a passageway into the afterlife. It's a line you cross at the end of your life. Now, when we refer to people who have died, we say they're "dead." Being dead is a lasting state only to the physical, decaying body, and to the Earthly presence. Or, the presence of life on other planets, of course. When our spirit returns to the universe, it's not dead in that state; we're simply spirits."        "Okay... So what about, like...ghosts...?" "Do you mean, the ghosts that haunt places?"        "Yeah, are those real?" "Most stories about them aren't, but yes, there are ghosts of the dead that do become trapped and linger around the physical plane. When they're close by, you know because it may feel cold, or you may feel ill or frightened for no apparent reason. This is because those spirits are trapped by the circumstances of their death, or there is something they feel they need to complete. This can be undone by praying and encouraging them into the light, freeing them from death all together, as it should be."        "Oh, okay so some of the stereotypes I've heard about are true. Cool." Stephen nodded. "Death is only scary for the living, Peter. Anything is only scary for the living."        "And...that's the point...?" "Yes. What have you to fear after death, when all of creation lies before you? The various planes of existence are harsh and terrifying in their own right, but souls are equipped to deal with them. And if they're not? They return to the light, too. There is no permanent destruction of the soul." As Peter looked off in deep thought, it was clear a sort of peace had overtaken him. He needed a minute to process it, and eventually, a sad smile traversed its way across his cheeks.       "That's nice... I don't know if I totally understand all of this, but I literally have no reason not to trust you, so... I will... Actually, you know what? I have one more question." Stephen motioned for him to continue.        "What about...people -- and animals, I guess -- that don't get to really experience life? What about...miscarriages, abortions, or babies?" "... And Marcus?" Peter looked down some, hurting. Stephen was sympathetic, and softer spoken as he had been earlier on. "Those lives, however short, aren't always about themselves. If I recall, you said you only knew Marcus for one day, but here you are, days later, torn up over his death, and grieving him. That's why he lived."        "...I don't...understand," he replied softly. "Babies, and small creatures with small life spans exist, yes, for their own sake, but like the rest of us, they also exist to influence the rest of life around them. Death is not particular about who or what it takes, or when, and a large point of it in regards to living is that death affects the living far greater, for far longer, than it affects those whom it takes over the threshold and back to the other planes. You can't live if you can't die, and you can't die if you don't live. That's what flesh is for. The fickle thing about death is it can inspire us, touch us, and wound us in unexpected ways. Marcus had a family, friends, and he touched quite a few lives in just four years. And now you, one of those people he touched, are sitting here trying to unravel the most frequently asked yet ironically easy to answer questions about life and death. He was a grand part of the experience for other people, including you. Do you understand this?" It required somber deliberation, but Peter finally came to the conclusion that he did."        "I think I do... It's still really sad..." "It is. And you're still "really sad," but knowledge truly is power. My advice is to take the information I've given you, and apply it. Don't be sad for Marcus; he's free, and he will most likely be back in another form. Mourn him how you need to, and don't stifle it. Just because you only knew him for a day doesn't make any of your grief less important. In our line of work, especially yours, learning to cope with death and be open to it is critical."        "I know... Thank you," he replied with a bittersweet smile. "Before you ask, no, he didn't deserve to suffer, or to die young. We don't die because we deserve to; we die because we're designed to." Peter nodded.       "I like that, heh..." "I hope this was helpful."    "It was, really. I appreciate it, thank you, Mr. -- Dr. -- Strange. Geeze, I just--" Slapping a hand to his face tiredly, Peter chuckled to himself, feeling the weight of his exhaustion now. And again, Stephen couldn't resist a smile. "'Stephen' works just fine, Peter. Just like before."        "Ahhhh!" he sighed out in exasperation, but looked again at his company and smiled more.       "Okay, Stephen." The older of them offered his hand to shake, and Peter accepted humbly.       "Hey, would it be like, blasphemous if I went and took notes about all this? Like, actually wrote it on paper?" "Blasphemy is for religion, and I don't have one of those. Take all the notes you want."        "Hah hah! Gotcha," he stated with a single thumb-up. At last, he released Stephen's hand. The sorcerer chose not to say anything about Peter's absentminded, extended handshake while they had that brief back and forth. Still, he noted to himself that Peter sure had one hell of a grip when he wanted.       "...So is Karma a thing?" "Yes, it is a 'thing,'" he responded rather flatly.       "Huh." "For every action, there is a reaction."        "Like science!" "It's as I told Tony; the supernatural is scientific and applies to science, but you must surrender yourself to it in order to practice and understand it."        "Yeah, I don't think I have the...the...I don't know, whatever it is you need to be able to do that." Stephen smiled, looking back on his life before the accident, which he had long understood was no accident at all. "You'd be surprised."        "Hm. Well, I should probably go now, you're probably tired." Stephen shrugged while Peter sat up, stretching his arms above his head. The former eyed his empty tea glass, contemplating making another cup, but ultimately deciding it was best not to. Peter rose to his feet and began to step off, waving behind himself nicely to what had been his temporary mentor.        "Night, Stephen." "Goodnight, Peter." Once Peter was out of sight, Stephen remained firmly planted in his position on the couch, as if waiting for something. Sure enough, not too much later, Peter came back into the room and up to the mystic master, an inquisitive but happy look about him.        "...You like butterflies... Why?" "Well that's a rather odd question," he answered cheekily. "We've not spent extensive amounts of time together, I know and have used many spells, and many animals appeal to me." Peter pulled back in submission, feeling silly.        "Oh -- pfft, you're right, I don't...really know where that came from." Stephen allowed him to stammer, and then smiled softly. "I like their metaphor."        "...Oh," he replied shortly, thinking.       "...Um... Which metaphor would that be...?" "Can you think of none?"        "I can think of a couple, probably, but..." "Then you're probably right." Before Peter's very eyes, Stephen cupped his hands, and a soft, bright light filled his palms. They trembled slightly, but steadied as a tiny golden sphere glittered in the midst of the glow. Enamored by the display, Peter sat beside Stephen again without thinking, leaning in close to look at the beautiful magic. The tiny sphere became a small caterpillar, which grew and fattened, and then became a chrysalis. The arachnid-named superhero felt his heart fill with warmth as the light brightened, illuminating the room, and from the chrysalis sprouted a gorgeous golden butterfly. It fluttered around in the sorcerer's hands, enticing Peter to reach out and gently touch it with his finger. No sooner than he did did the whimsical energy-based creation finally wither. Its body disappeared, and its wings fell weightless into Stephen's palms. The golden light, the wings, and the sensation of warmth faded all together, and again Peter found himself touched by a hint of sorrow. Stephen observed him. "There are many metaphors the butterfly speaks to. In this case, you can guess which ones are most appropriate." Peter nodded stiffly, sad but accepting before allowing himself to smile.        "Yeah... That was really cool, by the way." "Hm. Don't despair." Again, Stephen raised his hands, and a new orb appeared. Peter watched with tears in his eyes as again the orb became the caterpillar, and then the chrysalis, and then the butterfly. This time, when the butterfly withered, he noticed a tiny sparkle zip away into the air, a little further from the display, before evaporating. Wiping his eyes, Peter no longer felt so terrible after having watched the little sparkle fizzle away. Rather, he felt peaceful, and knew everything would be okay. Stephen smiled to him. "You're more perceptive than you give yourself credit for, Peter. You have great instincts. Use them." The urge to hug Stephen was overwhelming, but he decided it was best not to. Again, he nodded, and wiped the last of the tears from his eyes.       "I'll try..." "It's all we can do."        "Okay, I'm gonna go to bed now, ahah." This time when Peter stood and parted ways with him, Stephen sensed that he was no longer needed, and he too, left the living room, bedding in his temporary quarters. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[klarolinedrabbles]

What are some of the tvd to fandoms greatest hits so to speak... I was only in it for a short time and then jumped out because I couldn't stand to

Oh, well allow me to be your guide. This will be under a read more because I already know, I’m gonna write a whole essay. Shout out to my ride or die @hellsbellschime.

I don’t think any overtly crazy happened during the good!TVD years. No wait, I’m lying.

The year the spin-off got announced, I believe it was tvguide, that posted an article with like info tidbits for currently airing shows. And one of them, was that Hayley was pregnant with Klaus’ kid. I remember this shit so clearly, man. Everyone was so confused. And then they were like SURPRISE, APRIL FOOLS. Because it was in fact April 1st. So ha-ha we all had a laugh, great. Fastforward to what, late April? Episode 4x20 airs, and it’s exactly what happened???

That whole day btw, the day the backdoor pilot for TO aired was just insanity. I’ll say that about a lot of days in this answer, but that day was really just something else. Like we were delirious, that’s the only way I can explain what happened on here. It was a nightmare but also one of the funniest night’s I’ve ever spent on here. I gotta go back for old time’s sake and reblog some of the shit from that night because we all snapped. And not in the good way. 

The TVD 100th. Now, we knew Joseph was coming back for that episode so they hype was real. Because up until that point, we’d gotten a huge load of nothing in regards to Klaroline. They released a trailer, a short one, that’s still in my favorites folder on youtube to this day. I rewatch it all the time because it’s iconic. And there was literally .002 seconds of Klaroline. It’s Caroline standing and then Klaus says “hello, caroline” and everyone lost their shit so much when it dropped that ‘hello caroline’ trended ww on twitter. 

THE DAY THE NETWORK THAT AIRED TVD IN AUSTRALIA AIRED A PROMO WITH THE KLAROLINE KISS IN 5X11. ICONIC. I literally woke up, logged on at around 11 AM my time, and my dashboard was on fire. It was the BEST. We didn’t know wtf to do, it was amazing. 

Paleyfest. Ohhhh buddy, lemme tell ya. So TVD/TO got chosen to have the CW panel’s at Paleyfest that year. Everyone was on a bit of edge because TO to that point was what, almost done with S1 and Klaroline had been given the mega cold-shoulder despite being the very thing other than the Mikaelson’s that got used to lure people in? After the pregnancy plot from hell, everyone was ready to peace tf out, but we got halted because it was a ‘ohh of course it’s gonna continue’ then they tried to nip Klaroline in the bud with 5x11 and no one was having it. So Paleyfest was where we were gonna get some ANSWERS, DAMMIT. I live on the east coast and the festival was held in the west coast so I wasn’t awake when it was happening. I remember making a post about how ‘going to sleep, and hoping when I woke up the answers were good.’. So I went to sleep, woke up a few hours later like 2-3 AM my time, and checked my blog and the first message I had was ‘don’t wake up stephanie, everything is a mess, stay asleep where everything’s fine’ I—

The gist of that was, they basically set JoMo up to be the bad-cop in shutting down Klaroline. He gave this long answer that made absolutely zero sense. The girl who asked the question about Klaroline, who was like 13 at the time, got called a bully for even asking a question at an event she paid to be at. A mess. And JP was like NO CROSSOVERS, ORGANIC, BLAH BLAH. And Paul was sitting next to her going “why can’t the show’s just intersect”, he was right and he said it. 

I can’t remember if this was S1 or S2, but somebody tweeted something and Carina replied ‘when you’re found dead in your basement with klaroline written on you this is why’ or something like that, that was a ~fun~ night. And then like half an hour later she was like “I’m sorry, I’ll never tweet about Klaroline again just leave me alone” if you’ve ever seen this fandom refer to ourselves as basement dwellers, this night is why. 

NARDUCCI. Can’t forget him. Talk about a man who just didn’t get it. And I don’t mean Klaroline, he just didn’t get anything, nothing in his head has ever clicked, I’m convinced. He used to pick fights on twitter repeatedly. Admitted once that he missed his flight because he was on twitter…arguing with a fan. AND ONE DAY, he decided to just—snap. Went on this hours long tirade against the Klaroline fandom, essentially calling everyone stupid because no one was appreciating the ‘art’ of the show. So when I say it lasted hours, I mean that. Now, you’d think, that he would be done, right? WELL, apparently that wasn’t enough, so the next day, he continued. I remember because I was in this gc on whatsapp, and I remember Erika sending a message to the gc going “omg, Narducci vs KCers round 2″ when I tell you I screamed. The man went on a two-day rampage against this fandom and it was insane. 

S6/S2 of TVD/TO was not a fun time. I can genuinely say it was borderline a chore to come on here during that time. It wasn’t fun, every day someone was in argument with someone from production on twitter. Truly the worst year of the fandom, imo. So S7/S3 rolls around and that’s where shit went nuclear. 

Hillary and I, are minding our own damn business, when someone come’s to us with information regarding the new seasons. This was post-SDCC, so it’s like the lull of September, waiting for the seasons to start in October. And we get approached with information, talkin bout how Caroline’s gonna be pregnant with Alaric’s twins in S7. When I tell you we didn’t know wtf to do. And we had to like wait on confirmation about it but then we found out it was legit and we were pissed. Literally ask us if we wanted to be in the spoiler game, the answer is no tf we did not. And she and I basically spent two days complaining. LIKE UGHHHH WE DON’T WANNA DO THIS, BUT ALSO THIS IS DISGUSTING, WE CAN’T JUST LET THEM SPRING THIS ON EVERYONE, BUT AGHH WHY US. So we chose collectively, as a duo, because das my other half yo, to blab. 

That went over as best as anyone could hope for it to go. Now, flashforward yet again, this time to around late Novemeber/December. I had been sent word that something was going down. TVD/TO lost their Thursday slots and got bumped to Friday’s, so a plan was going on, and they made one. We’d heard that they were rearranging something mid-season because they were gonna make a crossover work, publicly we found out it would be Paul and JoMo that crossover back-to-back. THEN ONE NIGHT—I call it black friday bc  that day was a fucking mess—, a friend of mine was friends with an SCer, I wanna say, and she was hearing word that the crossover did have Klaus and Caroline interact via phone call, but that it was very definitively an ending. Because they spoke about Camille and Stefan, etc, etc. Like a closing of the book type thing. So okay, we were like devastated, everyone on twitter was losing their shit. Everyone was pissed, and @-ing the writers all these crazy, sad things, we were a wreck. Ask Hillary about this night because she, I remember, describes it as ‘logging on and reading what everyone else had and not understanding why tf everyone was mad about it’. It was the first and last time that our roles were reversed, and bless her for it. 

SO WE’RE SITTING THERE, it’s Saturday, and we kept getting more information and we were like…something isn’t right here. So we did a bit of digging, spoke to a few people and waited it out. LO AND BEHOLD, everything we’d heard about the phone call was false. There was a phone call but the CKers and SCers were so mad about what was actually said in it, that a few of em, ring leaders of the feeble minded, made up a version and passed it around their fandoms as legit till it eventually worked it’s way over to us. So we all jumped the gun on fake information, lmfskdnknsks. Rumor has it, you can still hear Hillary yelling ‘I told you so’ at me through our group chat. 

So all was well, I couldn’t tell everyone why not to panic, just that they didn’t need to. Until, this account popped up called tvdspoiler or something on twitter, also saying false information about the phone call. Sending everyone into a panic yet again. I remember this because I was at  kmart with my mom, and the kmart by my house was in a basement so I had no cell service. I was able to send like a couple of messages, and was basically like ‘tell everyone to chill, I’ll clear it up when I get home’ did that in like a couple of hours cause then I had to leave to the midnight showing of the force awakens with my friends. So that day was chaotic, but fun. It was the first time I reached 99+ messages on my inbox, lmao. 

So that all happened like a good while before we actually saw the episode. But cut to a few weeks later. I woke up at 1 AM my time to drink water, was on tumblr trying to go back to sleep. I checked my inbox and there was this bizarre message talking about ‘got some scoop’ and they were like ‘Finn dies in 3x17, Aurora gets put into some weird sleeping spell in 3x18, Camille and Davina die in 3x19, Lucien dies in 3x20′ and I quite literally laughed??? Literally who wouldn’t. Like who tf would ever believe TO had the balls to do all of that when they never killed anyone off. AND, WHO WOULD BELIEVE THAT SOMEONE WOULD JUST STOP BY, SHARE IT AND LEAVE. So I sent a screenshot to Hillary and was like ‘yo did you get this because wtf’. We often got duplicate messages. And we often got messages of people who were pissed about the two previous times we, from the klaroline fandom of all places, had legit info that wound up being true, that they were just waiting for us to fuck up. So we used to get messages of people pretending they were sharing info, and it was just antis trying to make us look stupid. 

SO, Hillary says ‘just answer it because it’s obviously fake’ top ten moments before disaster. I answer it and am like oh haha, and where did that info come from. And they came back like a minute later, saying ‘I have a source’ THEN THEY ELABORATED. They mentioned that Lucien drags Freya and Vincent to Mystic Falls to do this spell with some bullet and etc. So at that point we were like fUCK because that same day we’d found out was in 3x16, which ended with Lucien and this white-oak bullet, having kidnapped Freya. And that’s when we knew, that someone showed up in the middle of the night, spoiled the whole back-half of TO S3—and then left.

The back-half of S3 was so fun??? Every week the info just kept coming true. On the wikia everyone hated me, probably the most anti messages I ever had was during that time, honestly it was great, 10/10 would recommend. 

THEN, at some point in our blog history, Hillary had been getting quite a few messages about PT. And she had this fucking line in one of the messages about Phoebe’s pronunciation with her accent for the show, or lack thereof. And she said “weeches and woves will always have a place in my heart” SO THEM PHOEBE TWEETED IT. THAT EXACT LINE, and we were like was she...? So we shrugged off okay. A few days later, she tweeted “hellsbellschime enough, there’s plenty of other things to watch on tv, I hear mad men’s great.” And I—

THIS WAS ON SOME RANDOM ASS SUNDAY. Like I was lounging around, waiting for the new episode of game of thrones and then WHAM, chaos. AND AS IF THAT WASNT ENOUGH, Leah joined in too. Putting a target on my friends back...about her blog that no one was making them read. You can’t make that shit up. And Jenn actually replied to Phoebe’s tweet and got a reply back, and she was all “you’re right, I’m sorry” and then deleted the original tweet, which I still have a screenshot of btw. And then Leah showed up in Hillary’s inbox with this ridiculous three part ask about how she shouldn’t criticize women in the acting industry because of how hard it is for women in that industry which is true, but it doesn’t make you exempt from criticism??? So not sure where she meant to go with that one.

SO THERE WE HAVE IT, our fandom’s greatest hits. I’m sure I can elaborate and insert more, but I’ve been typing for a good 40 minutes. 

Told ya, I wrote a whole dissertation, lmaooo.

[shookmybones]

Thank God for Cafes and Hot Guys

Ch.1 (PerryX3)            

She sat down and watched, over and over again, the way he walked, back and forth, back and forth. His eyes met with hers. Finally. She thought. She tried not to seem excited, even though she looked like a dog waiting for his owner to come walking up to the door. The dog’s eyes raised his body, and his hopes. So was she; just like the dog; raising her hopes farther than she could ever reach. Those blue eyes are enough for today.

          As a matter of a fact, she did this everyday. Only because she can’t and will possibly never be the same way after those blue eyes met hers. Her eyes were so dark, so brown-black-dark. Perry. Her eyes said it as she looked at the busboy of her dreams. (More like, her “real-life”-everyday world.)

“Darlenys? You’re drooling again!” Arlin snickered.

“She’s like so in love with that busboy guy.” Marlen told her.

“No! Really?! Ya think?!” Arlin replied sarcastically.

“Arlin, don’t mock her!” I said.

“Sorry!” Arlin said, sarcastically saying things to get me worked up.

“Let’s go! I’m tired of staring at him!” Marlen pointed. I wanted to kill her! (Not really, but, yeah. I had the urge.)

          Perry came closer as if someone had planned the script in a movie and the guy was just desperate to meet that girl who drove him crazy.

           My heart was beating faster than ever! I was sinking deep into my seat.

“Oooops! Dropped…uh…something…”

“Here let me help you…”

“No! …I…uh…?”

           He looked at me, as I looked like an idiot who actually puts her whole body under the table just to get a…thing.

“Hi.” He said.

“…Hi…um…yeah. Let me…uh, get out from under this table.” I said.

“I’m Perry, and I’ll be your waiter this, uh, morning.” He smiled.

His smile was…amazing (ah-may-zing)!

“Oh. Hi Perry! I’m Darlenys, your customer this morning!”

“And I’m Arlin and this is her sister, Marlen!”

Shoot me now. I thought.

“Hi Perry!” Marlen waved.

“Hello Marlen! Hey Arlin!” Perry greeted them.

“So what brings you guys here?” He asked us.

“We have breakfast here…” I said.

“Since she’s too lazy to make any!” Marlen interrupted.

“Hahaha. I can’t cook!” I explained.

“Neither can I! I’m just the busboy!” He said, smiling. I felt so relieved.

“Wow, we have so much in common!” I said, sarcastically.

“Yeah! I mean, you both can’t cook, and wait…what else?”

Perry whispered something to Marlen in her ear. She giggled.

“And…” She continued., “You both like each other!!!”

“Lol! What?!” Arlin seriously laughed out loud!!!

“Ummm…?” I was so embarrassed! I felt my cheeks getting warm; the urge to pee; I wanted to cover and run!

“Excuse me!” I went to the bathroom.

           Perry knew where I was headed.

He followed me…and waited and listened to hear if anyone else was in there. Then, he

barged in quickly.

“Hello?”

“What are you doing in here? This is the ladies’ room!” I laughed, even though I was crying.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Perry asked me.

“My little sister comes up with the silliest things!” I kind of cry-laughed.

“So? Kids are always embarrassing their brothers and sisters! It’s one of those natural things, like girls being pretty just like you.” He smiled. I blushed naturally.

           Perry stared. Then he whispered in my ear; or tried to I giggled.

“What? What did I do?” He asked.

“…Nothing.”

“…?”

“I don’t like whispering. It tickles me.”

“…O…K?”

“I know it’s silly!”                                                          

“Well, no. Different, a bit. At least you’re one of the people that don’t gossip. I hate gossipers!”

“That’s nice…LOL. I’m not much of a gossiper. But everyone sort of is, in their own way.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. See, there are people that say a thing or tow to a friend who begins a long train of lies. And then there are people, who… take what they’re told and just repeat it for the world to hear. Like…? Uh…?”

“Like…uh?”

“Oh, like, ‘Perry and Darlenys speak in a ladies’ room.’ ”

“Or, ‘Perry kisses Darlenys in a ladies’ room.’ “

“What?” I paused, then continued, “So that’s what you whispered!”

“Huh?” He joked.

“Noth-…”

“…-ing.” He kissed me.

           He held my face. His eyes closed. Mine, shut tightly. (I had a tendency to peek!)

“A bit forward, Mr. ..?”

“Delloplane.” He continued. Then stopped to look for something; A sign. He put it on the doorknob from the exterior.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“It’s kind of like a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign…What? You want women to come barging in here with the urge to pee and disturb us?”

“I guess not.” I shrugged.

“You’re guessing now?”

“…LOL. No.”

“Good. Because I want you to know that I like you.”

“Well…I could have guessed that!”

           He kissed me.

“So does this mean I don’t have to come in here and stare at you anymore?” I asked, feeling embarrassed by my question.

“What?…Oh! Well,…you can still do that, if you want to.”

“So, you knew?”

“Yeah; I stare at you, too.”

“Wow! Marlen was right!”

“I’m glad.”

“I have to go. I promised Marlen and Arlin that I’d take them to the mall!”

“Now I’m sad!” He puppy-dog pouted. (Adorably, of course!)

“And I’m sorry to hear that, but I have to go!”

“Well-okay. But we have to say good-bye/”

“Okay! Bye-…”

           He kissed me. (It was pretty passionate!)

“Bye!”

“How are you going to get out of here without being noticed?”

“Ehh…I’ll find a way.”

“Okay.” I smiled at him.

           I came out of the bathroom with an odd face of carefully-considered caring (?).

(In other words…I was happy enough to burst!)

“What’s with you?” Arlin asked.

“You know, stuff.” I replied smiling.

“Can we go to the mall now, Neni?” Marlen asked.

“Oh! Yeah! Can we?” Arlin reminded herself.

“Sure!”

          I saw Perry come out. Well, actually, I saw that he was out. I didn’t recall the exiting-part. As long as he wasn’t in there anymore and got out without getting in trouble…it didn’t really matter.

“Here’s the check, ladies. Have a beautiful day!” Perry secretly winked at me.

“Mm-hm…”” Arlin and Marlen stared at me.

“Oh, I guess you guys don’t want to go to the mall…”

“Wait!…” They both said.

          So, we’re driving to the mall, the car was full of… “I’m hot; You’re cold. You go around like you know who I am, but you don’t. You’ve got me on my toes!

I’m slipping into the lava. And I’m trying to keep from going under. Baby, you turn the temperature hotter. Cuz, I’m burnin’ up, burnin’ up for you, baby!”

“LOL! Okay! Okay! Let the chouffer drive!” I said.

As We arrive, I laid down a couple of ‘ground rules.’

“No: running around like maniacs; no leaving Marlen alone; always have your cell phones on and off of silent mode. Are we clear?”

“Question: What if I see my friends? Can I go with them and walk around the mall?” Marlen asked. Arlin agreed.

“Well, let me put it this way, if you both know where you’re going to be; say, meet each other somewhere in the mall where you’d go.”

“Limited Too!” They both giggled.

“Whatever, as long as you know.” I replied.

“Always pick up your phone! Especially when it’s one of you guys, or me!”

Ch.2 (Keep Your Receipt!)

           “Thanks Neni!” Marlen got out with her ‘boys’. (JB tote bag)

“Thanks Mom!…” Arlin’s sarcasm dared to come out.

“…” I gave her ’the excuse me-I’m looking for-the swimming pool-look’

“I mean, Darlenys.”

“That’s what I thought you said.” I said.

“LOL! Okay, bye!” I waved.

          Turns out Marlen was on to something because as soon as she and Arlin saw me turn the corner, she ran into the mall and looked for her friends, a small posse of girls that were waiting for her at Limited Too.

“Wait! You mean, you called? OH!…Uh?? Sneaky! Air five! Whoosh!”

“Whoosh!” Marlen completed her portion of the air five.

“Hey Marlen! Com’on! There’s new stuff in here! You gotta come check it out!” Krystal pointed to the store.

“Jonas Brothers stuff?!” Chelsea’s eyes widened.

Brithany, Xiomara, Alexandra, Miranda and Aishah stared at the marvelous-ness (?) that was come to be called “Limited Too.”

“Okay, I want to see quick and then I’m going to Hollister.” Arlin said. (So typically.)

Back to more important things, like Perry.

           I rush home; fast enough not to get in trouble and start giggling at the fact that all of this happened today. Thank Marlen! (I think I actually thought that?!) I did! Well, now all I want to do is see him again! “The last time I freaked, I just kept looking down. I stu-stu- stuttered when you asked me what I’m thinking’ ’bout…”

“Hello?”

“Lenys!”

“Keyra?!”

“Where are you right now?!” She asked me, getting up and going to a door.

“…Uh…in California. Why?…”

“Just asking.”

The doorbell rang.

“Keyra!!!!!!” I screamed, throwing the phone. (Who cares?!)

“OMJ! I’ve missed you so much!!!”

“Pshhh! You’ve missed me??!! I’ve missed my besterist more than anyone else!”

“AHHHHHH!…” We both screamed.

“So,…enough of this out here! Let’s go inside!” I continued; “I’ve got so much to tell you!”

As Keyra and I caught up, we shared very important details.

“So, guess who I’m going out with?” Keyra jumped up.

“Uh…no idea. Who?”

“…JOE JONAS!!!”

“OMJ!!!!!” I thought about Nick, but didn’t dare to ask her.

“So?”

“You’re wondering about Nick, right?”

“Actually…,” I sigh, “Yeah!”

“He’s fine, I guess. Not really up to much. Don’t worry Lenys, I mentioned you to him; Nothing embarrassing though! I just told him that you love their work, and you really, really think he’s a great guy, and that he deserves better.”

“Keyra! You did not say…”

“What? Yeah, I did! He had to hear it from someone other than his brothers!”

“You’re ah-may-zing!!! (amazing!)” I hugged her.

“I love you, Lenys!!!” She hugged back.

“So…?” She gave me ‘the look’.

“Uh…oh yeah! I met someone…”

“Well, I was going to say, ‘Ask me why I’m here?’ but, okay, let’s go with that!”

“…Thanks for putting me on the spotlight and all, but…yeah. His name is Perry Delloplane. He’s got dark, black hair; deep blue eyes; he wears those skinny, tight Jonas jeans (we) I like so much! He’s sweet, really nice, and he…”

“What?”

“He likes me back!!!”

“Oh, you go Lenys!!” We high-fived; Keyra cheered me on.

“Hey, why is it so empty in here?” Keyra asked looking around.

“Marlen’s at the mall with Arlin; we took pictures in front of her house the day of Camp Rock..”

“Oh, yeah!”

“Wow!”

“What?”

“He kissed me in the ladies’ room!”

“….?”

“Long story-short: Marlen embarrassed me and I went to the bathroom. Perry went in to see if I was okay. He comforted me…”

“Oh, yes he did!”

I shoved her.

“What?” She said.

“It’s complicated, but, trust me, that’s it.”

“What do you mean?”

          I told her how Marlen embarrassed me. I told her about what I thought Perry whispered. (I was most likely right, by the way.) Then ,I told her how Perry ‘comforted’ me. He liked me too! (Yes!)

“Hey! Want to go see him?” I asked.

“Sure, I mean, if you’re sure.” She replied.

“I just have to call Yasmin, my besterist from home.”

I called Yas.

“Yas! You have got to get your butt over here! It’s urgent! I want you to meet someone!”

“Uhmmm….okay. I’m going to sound a little bit like you, but…should I be scared?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay, where should I meet you?”

“At The Breakfast Club Café.”

“Okay…what time?”

“Now-ish…”

“Not going to say anything.”

“Fine by me! I love you!”

“Love you too!”

           As Keyra and I get our stuff together to go to the café, I remember something…from this morning. The receipt!

“Wait! Wait!” I looked for the receipt.

“What are you looking for?”

“The receipt. It might have the hours.”

“It says 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.” (It was Tuesday.) Keyra said, reading out loud.

“Well, I don’t know his work hours, or what shift he usually works. To me, I’m guessing he works in the morning..”

Then I realized that there was something written on the receipt.

           “Your eyes are dark, mysteriously wonderous and empty. They make me braver. Brave enough to kiss you, (which I’m sorry if I was too forward, btw.) and just as brave to ask you out, maybe. (?)

Circle       Y   or   N  

“Well now you know his hours. And we’re in no rush, it’s only 1:36 p.m.” Keyra said.

“Yeah, okay! Let’s go!” I said, pulling her.

“Lenys, I said no rush!!” She yelled after me.

“And why can’t I get through the night without another fight? I’m tired of the hurting…”  My phone rang. It was Yas.

“Are you going over there?”

“Uh, yeah…I’m getting in the car.”

“Okay. Actually I’m closer, so I’m going to walk there.”

“Okay then!”

“Bye!”

“Bye!” I hung up the phone.

Ch.3 (Counting On Time)

          Yasmin decides to walk. Why? No idea. She’s texting who knows who for who knows what reason when she bumps into someone in the same thing; texting. It causes accidents.

“Oh, my gosh! I am so sorry! I..” She’s being helped up by Kevin Jonas!

“No, it’s okay! Things happen…” he got a good glimpse of her.

“..And for a reason, apparently.” He continued, “I’m Kevin Jonas.”

“I recognize you, yeah. I’m Yasmin Abreu.” They shook hands.

“Oh, Hi, Yasmin.” Kevin’s hair was in his eyes. (And we all know how hot that is!) His hair was straight.

“Where are you headed in such a hurry?” He asked her.

“I’m meeting my friend at a café just around here.” She replied.

“Oh, what, uh, your boy…”

“No! Just, just a good friend my best, most dearest girlfriend.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Can I ask why you’re in a hurry?”

“Sure! Ask!”

She laughs. “So, why are you in such a hurry?”

“Honestly, I wasn’t.”

“Oh, but I like now. This is a good time.” Kevin says.

“Why?” Yasmin looked befuddled.

“It could be because it’s California, where the sun’s shining 85% of the time…or because I just met you, Yasmin.”

She blushed. (Awwww!)

“Where is she?” I looked for Yasmin up and down the street.

“Maybe she’s inside already.” Keyra suggested.

“Maybe.” We went inside. She was inside; Talking it up with Kevin Jonas. He kind of turned, noticing Keyra. Yas got up when she saw me.

“Hey Yas!” I hugged her, whispering, “Why is Kevin Jonas here?” in her ear.

“I bumped into him on my way over here.”

“Hmmm…okay.”

“Well?”

“What?”

“It’s nice that you are getting to know him and I’m very extremely happy for you! Both of you!”

“Hi Yasmin!” Keyra greeted her.”

“Hey Keyra!” Yas said “Hi” back.

“Well, we better see who this guy is, before…” Yas said.

“Can I get your order?…”

          Perry was a couple of tables away, but I could hear him perfectly, as if there were no single person but us two in the room of that bathroom in that café. He came towards Yas and Kevin’s table. (I hope he still remembered me.) When he got there, he made no eye contact whatsoever with me. I felt so confused and hurt all at once. Then I thought about going to the bathroom to make it all better, but Keyra could have gone with me, or even Yas.

“So you’re just going to ignore me?” I didn’t hesitate in saying this to him.

“Yes.” He made no eye contact with me. He kept going about his business.

“Okay.” I was about to leave.

He grabbed my hand, “Only because I’m being watched.

“Huh?” I turned to him.

“The inspectors are here and I’ve got to do so much stuff today and the boss left me on duty for almost everything!”

“Oh, I’m sorry!”

“Hey, if you were to get excited about something right now, would you get in trouble?”

“Uh…tell me in the bathroom. Go in like nothing’s ever happened and you are just going to use the bathroom and then I’ll close it for clean up.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey!” He made eye contact with me, smiling.

“Yeah?”

“I LOVE YOU!” I whispered; more mouthing the words than whispering itself. Perry.

“Really?” He said to himself. “Time to clean the bathroom!”

          He told two workers to work on orders, both in and out. He rushed, went back to get the mop and cart to play it out.

“Is anyone in here?” He looked around, as he looked for me, as well.

“Just me; I hope it’s okay.” I looked at him.

“What did you want to tell me?” He asked.

“I read the receipt.” I replied getting closer.

           I showed him the receipt. He read it and said that I didn’t fill it out.

“That’s what I came to tell you. Yes, Perry, I’d love to go out with you!” I smiled.

           He started jumping around everywhere.

“This is…is ah-may-zing (amazing), this is, is insanely-crazy-good…Wow!!!!” He grabbed my face and kissed my lips for a good five minutes.

“Whoah baby!” I said, biting my lips afterwards.

I giggled.

“Hey how’s about we go out tonight? I’m a Cali guy and I know some ah-may-zing (amazing) places to go out to.”

“Uh, sure!”

          We exchanged numbers, email addresses, work hours, and work emails. Anything that could be used to connect, we exchanged it. We finally left the bathroom after about a good 10 mins. Later on, I went back to Keyra, Yas, and Kevin. Yasmin and Kevin were pretty occupied with their own conversation to join us in ours, but we forgave them because of the “image” we saw. Kesmin.

“Operation Kesmin is on go: OVER!” I said to Keyra through my hand-walkie talkie.

“Copy that, besterist! Over and out!” Keyra laughed.

“So, when am I going to meet Joe?”

“Soon…!”

I froze; Then, kind of giggling, played along. Keyra’s eyes were being covered. She had to guess…which was pretty predictable because I was sitting face-to-face with her so it was definitely not me!

“Joe?”

“Good job! Here’s your treat!” He kissed her on the cheek.

“Hey! I want to meet my besterist friend in the whole wide world!” Keyra’s eyes widened.

“Hi, I’m the besterist, Darlenys. One of the reasons why she’s always smiling.” I introduced myself.

“Hi, I’m Joe, but you already know that don’t you?”

“Should I say ‘no’?”

“It’s kind of hard to do that since you’re accessorizing: Jonas style!” He pointed to the bag and the pendant that had JB on it.

“Oh,” I held the pendant, “Right!”

“Well, I’m flattered that you love me and my brothers!…and that’s a great coincidence that Keyra’s your, uh…besterist?”

“Besterist! Besterist friend in the whole wide world, actually!” I smiled, hugging Keyra.

“Yup!” Keyra def. agreed.

“Okay?…”

“Awkward!” He said, I did too (?). Which made that even more weird.

           We laughed and just talked. Perry signaled to me.

UH-OH! I was so confused! I’m completely horrible when it comes to signaling. Just the basics are good for me; “Hi,” “Bye,” and “I have to pee!” It’s really sad! I know! He gave up and went back and forth near Joe, Keyra and I.

“Wha…I can’t understand you!” I whispered.

“I’m going on my lunch break!” He whispered back.

“Lenys…?” Keyra noticed. Great! (sarcastically thinking.)

“Uh, I have to go…” My cell phone rang. Arlin! Yes!

“I’ll be right back-maybe.”

“Maybe?” Joe asked.

“You see, my sister and her friend are at the mall, and I’m their ride, so…yeah. BUT, (I have no idea why I’m saying this, but,) what are you guys doing tonight?”

           I felt so stupid after I said this, but I felt so bad that I had to leave them.

“Uh, well, I guess not?” Keyra looked at Joe.

“Uh,…no we’re not really up to much today. What’d you have in mind?” Joe asked.

“Oh, I don’t really know, but I’m going out with this guy and I really don’t want to go alone! I wanted Keyra to come and since you’re here, you should go with her! Whadaya think?”

“Well, if it’s okay with you and this guy, and Keyra…” Joe was interrupted by Keyra.

“Of course it’s okay with me! I just hope that you can have the best first-date of your life with…”

“Perry.”

“Oh, you mean, the busboy at the café?” She asked.

“He works here; he’s the one over there, with the dark black hair…”

“Oh, I see him.”

“Well, then it’s settled.” Joe said.

“…Oh man! What have I done?!” I shouted.

“ Excuse me?” Joe asked.

“What happened, Lenys?” Keyra asked.

“I have, like, no idea what to do, or what to wear or…anything.” I continued. “He said he’s a Cali guy.”

“So…? I’m a Cali girl…”

“…And I’m from New Jersey, so what does this have to do with anything?”

“Uh! I don’t know.”

“Okay, Okay! How about we go bowling and then we meet there, play a game or two, then we go our separate ways on this double date?” Joe asked.

“Okay, it sounds good!” I said. “Thank you so much! I don’t know what I would’ve done without both of you guys, literally! I mean, I’d be lost!” I left to go pick up the girls.

I get a phone call from some strange number.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Who is this?”

“Perry.”

“Oh! You scared me there, for a sec!”

“Well, I can see that signaling to you is never going to work!” He laughed.

“Shut up! I’m not the signaling type! I only know hi’s, bye’s, I have to pee,…”

“I love you?”

I got quiet, “Yeah.” I responded.

“Uhm, I’m actually driving to pick up the girls, but can I tell you something really quick?” I asked.

“Sure, what?” He asked back.

“I kinda made a little double-date with my friend and her boyfriend but it’s going to be at a bowling alley, so…it’s just a game or two and then we go our separate ways, but…does that mess with what you had planned for tonight?”

“Actually, that’s great! We can go bowling for part of it, and then, we can go around town.”

“Where?”

“It’s a surprise!”

“Well, okay; what should I wear?”

“Jeans, a nice shirt, NO HEELS!”

“Not a problem with the heels!”

“Why’s that?”

“I only wear them when it’s extremely special; not that this isn’t!”

“Okay. Well I’ve got to go! I’ll pick you up at 7:00 p.m.!”

“Okay! Bye!”

“I’ll be counting the minutes!” He added.

Ch.4 (Rendez-vous)

           He’s just as excited about this as I am! Then, I thought, what to do with the girls tonight?

“Guys! What are you up to tonight?”

“Uh, don’t know!” Marlen said.

“Nothing I guess (?)!” Arlin thought, then just figured that there really was nothing to do.

“Well, I have to go out and catch up with Keyra, but I can’t leave you guys alone, and I’m DEFINITELY NOT TAKING YOU! So, what da ya think?”

“Sleep-over at a friend’s?” Marlen almost stood in her seat.

“Uh, I don’t know? Do I know this friend?”

“Yeah. Aishah.”

“Oh! Is her mom there?”

“Marlen’s already getting it started!” Arlin laughed.

           Marlen was already calling Aishah and asking and planning their ah-may-zing (amazing) sleepover.

“Oh, wow!” I laughed. “What about you?”

“Can I just stay home?”

“As long as you don’t leave the house and don’t answer doors.”

“Okay.”

“So it’s settled? You guys officially have something to do!”

“Yup!” Marlen came into the conversation after she hung up.

Arlin and I laughed!

          We got home. I got out my Ipod and connected it to the dock ad just started dancing to my play lists. Music always calmed me down when I was feeling uneasy…because I was so excited!!!

          Perry and I were officially going out and not just as girlfriend and boyfriend, but on a date! How wasn’t this real? Then again…I pinched myself “awake” but I was already awake and I was dancing around in my room, doing invisible air-guitar solos for all of my dreams that have and were coming true!!! I was finally going to go out with the guy of my dreams!

           I was taking a shower. My clothes were all set on my bed, (Yes, I still did this!), Marlen was at Aishah’s, and Arlin was on the computer. The doorbell rang and since I was taking a shower, I barely heard anything. Arlin answered the door.

           There stood Perry Delloplane in a nice shirt and jeans with some vans. (Me like! Not that I saw!)

“Hey Arlin!” I had a feeling we weren’t alone, “Can you come here a sec?!” I couldn’t leave because I wasn’t about to go over there in just my robe.

“He’s here!” Arlin smiled, poking me.

“Okay, Okay; but I really am going to catch up with Keyra and talk to Joe some more…”

“Joe-Jo-…” Her face was paralyzed.

“Jonas.” I said.

“Whoah!”

“No, you can’t go!” I said.

“Maybe you’ll get to see him one day!” I said.

“Fine! Have fun…”

“Oh yeah, in my robe!!!” I grinned sarcastically.

She laughed out loud, “Sorry! Well, when you get dressed, have a good time!”

“Thanks!”

           I went to the living room. I did my breathing exercises on my way there. Turns out, so was he! Perry.

“Whoah! You look…beautiful!” He stared.

“Thank you! You look really nice, too! Love the shirt!” I pointed.

“Thanks! Oh, by the way,” He ruffled through some things in his bag of stuff, “I got you this.” Then he took out the bouquet that matched the single orchid.

“Orchids? Classy! Thank you!” I put them in a vase. I put the single one in the hair. “Let’s go!”

“Yup.” He took my hand. I blushed.

          We got to the bowling alley. Keyra and Joe were talking. As soon as I was in five feet of them, I heard a loud, “Lenys!” cry.

“Keyra!” We hugged. Joe walked over and said hi. Perry said hi.

Keyra whispered, “He’s cute!” in my ear. I giggled.

“Okay! Let’s do get this started!” I shouted. Keyra laughed.

“Yeah!” Joe screamed, making a funny face at Keyra.

She laughed. They kissed.

Perry held my hand and we talked about everything as the game kept going.

“Yeah! Oh Yeah! Uh-huh!” Joe danced.

Keyra pointed and laughed.

“Oh yeah?” He ran towards her. She screamed. He kissed her.

“Oh god! Not in public!” I yelled; Perry laughed, then got completely serious, getting closer, holding my face. We kissed as I tried to bowl; I dropped the ball and kissed him…getting a perfect strike?! Joe’s eyes widened. Keyra’s jaw dropped. Perry and I had no idea that that had happened. We stopped. I giggled.

Later On…

           Joe summed up the scores, even though that was the machine’s job, and turns out, Keyra won! He overreacted.

“What?” He pulled his hair. “That’s impossible!”

Then I added, “That’s illogical, Joe can’t have it!”

“Haha!” Keyra pointed at Joe. Perry and I laughed.

Ch.5 (Nine In The Afternoon)

           Perry and I decided to go our separate ways, without Keyra and Joe.

“I think we’re ready to go.” I whispered to Keyra.

“Okay…” She whispered back.

“Bye Joe, Bye Keyra!” Perry said as he held my hand. I had a huge grin on my face.

“Oh! Leaving already? Okay then!” Joe asked. Keyra shoved him.

“Bye Lenys! Bye Perry!” Keyra shouted, waving.

           I was so extremely nervous. Perry made me feel safe, although he was a total stranger, he was a caring stranger.

“Where are we going?”

“Anywhere you want!” He ran from me, making me chase him.

I laughed.

           It was like a part in a movie, the guy plays around with the girl, she plays back.

          We tumble and roll around on some grass. Perry falls on me. I laughed to a silent smile. We just looked at each other. Perry kissed me. He helped me up and we got into the car and rode off.

           All of sudden, “Shake It” comes on the radio and I scream. I, trying to be hilarious, started singing to it.

“I’ll take you home if you don’t meet me at the front door (meet me at the front door). You’re body’s cold, but girl, we’re getting so warm. And I was thinking of ways that I could get inside. So now you’re falling in love (Here we go now!). This feeling’s tearing me up! (Let me go now!)…”

Perry laughed so hard at me, in a good ‘you’re so cute’ way!

“So, Cali-guy, where are we going, tonight?” I whispered in his ear.

“I told you, anywhere you want!” He whispered back.

“Well, as you may have noticed, I’m not from here…At least let me know what we’re going to do!”

           He thought deeply, for a couple of minutes; Enough for us to reach our destination.

“Here; we’re going to have fun!” He opened the car door for me. I screamed inside my head (and outside)!

“What are you screaming about?”

“…I…like to express my feelings for the crowd to hear…?” I shrugged my shoulders.

He laughed. “Com’on!” He took my hand (tonight. We could run so far. We could change the world Do anything we want. We could stop for hours, just staring at the stars. They come down to show us.)

Meanwhile…

Marlen was at Aishah’s house doing who-knows-what and just laughing about it all the way to the movies. Marlen and Aishah heard that there was going to be a special appearance of some actor from this new movie that was premiering. Marlen calls Arlin to rub it in her face. Aishah laughs.

“Hello?” Arlin answered her phone.

“Hi!” Marlen said.

“Hi…?” Arlin answered back.

“Guess what we’re doing?”

“…Uh, what?” “We’re going to see that British guy, Skandar…”

“What???” She took a deep breath. “Where are you, right now…wait a minute, you’re trying to trick me!” Arlin doubted the girls.

“Okay…? But he looks just like that guy and he TALKS just like that guy…and he,…hangs out with…” She stared with a shocked face, “NICK JONAS?!!!”

“What?? Too bad Darlenys…never mind.”

“What?”

“She went out.”

“Com’on and see him for yourself, if you want!”

           Arlin thought. Marlen interrupted her pensive state by asking, “Where are Joe and Kevin?” “Having a life-how should I know?!” She looked for her key, some money and her phone. “Where are you guys again?”

          As Arlin walked to the Phantom of The Opera Cinema, she noticed all of the full parking lots from stores nearby. The lights, the crowd, everything-extremely crazy!

“Wow! Those little girls were right!” She actually said out loud.

(She spoke to herself, in other words.)

           Arlin barged through those doors, cutting through people like a butter knife.

“That was fast!” Marlen said to Aishah.

“Yeah!” She responded.

           Arlin found Marlen and pointed in her direction.

“You! Alright! I’m here! Where is he?”

Skandar was across the hall from all of this teenage-escapading from all around the state! He, who had been in a room full of girls, could only focus on the one with the shiny, long, black hair. (In case you’re wondering, a hint would be that Arlin was one of the few brunettes who had shiny, black hair.) Skandar was seriously about to go over there to meet Arlin; and trust me, that’s all Arlin wanted to happen.

“OMG! He’s coming this way! What should…Is…Does my hair look okay?” Arlin asked.

“Marlen! Is her hair okay?” Aishah snapped her fingers in front of Marlen.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! Perfect!”

“What are y…”

“Don’t turn around and just pretend we’re talking about something funny.”

           They all fake-laugh their target, well, Arlin’s target.

“Hello! I’m Skandar Keynes; From, Chronicles of Narnia…”

Ch.6 (Skandar Keynes)

“Yes, I know! I loved both of those movies to death!”

“Oh really? Thanks! I’ll be sure to tell the cast!” Arlin laughed.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Arlin K…Salazar.” She starts to say his last name.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Arlin. Just Arlin!” She tried not to laugh.

“That’s a nice name you’ve got there.” He played that over and over again; same as Arlin with what he had said.

“Well, the movie’s about to start.” Skandar said.

“Yup.” Arlin responded.

Awkward-Seconds-Silence.

“Is it okay if I sit with you…?” He asked ARLIN.

“And us?!” Marlen piped (?).

“Oh, Hi!” He said.

“Hi! I’m Marlen! This is my friend, Aishah!”

“Hello!…Well, Arlin?” He almost put out his hand.

          Arlin was trying not to “break a sweat,” but then again, Skandar Keynes…And out of nowhere Nick Jonas decides to join them! And I was on what had become the best night of my life! I’m finally going out with Perry Delloplane! And then, out of nowhere, Nick Jonas seems to be available, and in the area? Great!

Going Back To PerryLenys…

          He took me to a carnival that had been in town for about two weeks. It had rides, games, concession stands and all that good stuff! We went on the classics; bumper cars, Ferris wheel, and carousel. Perry couldn’t keep up with me on the bumper cars! I was definitely on a roll! Then we bought a bag of cotton candy and shared it. My fingers were all sticky but he held my hand either way.

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“ What?” He looked confused.

“My sticky, cotton candy-smelling fingers?”

“I ate some too!”

“Hmmmm…?” I was confused now.

“Look, it doesn’t matter if your fingers are: long, short, sticky or clean; I care about how much I’ve waited for this to happen.”

“Really?” I stopped.

“Yeah.” He stopped too.

“This has been amazing! I love it!…All of it! This, here, and you and me…I’m making no sense…” I said.

“Yes you are! That’s exactly how I feel right now! I, actually, didn’t think that there’d be anything more perfect than this.”

“What do you mean?” I took some more cotton candy.

“That’s exactly it! I mean, that is what I mean? I’m trying to make sense here, if that’s ever going to happen.”

I laughed. “Apparently not!”

          He laughed too, his deep blue eyes glistening against his white skin. Then, that strand of hair…it covered his right eye-my favorite eye-because every time I did something stupid on that first date, that right, blue eye would right away tell me that it was okay. Cute, even.

          As he went on and on about something that ,clearly, didn’t interest me at all, I just stared at him. Then, he realized that I wasn’t listening and stared at me, smile on smile.

“So, what else do you want to do?” He asked me.

“I don’t know. We’ve gone on almost every ride in here!”

“Almost every ride…” He thought, getting out of his pensive trance and now pulling me to the one ride that I had said ‘no’ to.

“Oh…com’on! Please!!” His eyes begged me, his arm pulling mine.

“Uh, NO! I don’t think so!”

“Why not?” He stayed still.

“…Be…-Cause!” I set my foot down.

“For me?” He bashed his long eyelashes.

“You promise to hold on tight?” I gave in. He smiled.

“I promise!” He held my hand.

I blushed a little. “Oh Crap!” My feet stiffened.

“What? I told you I’d promised?!” He said.

          After about ten minutes, he decided to let it drop. I felt so embarrassed, but I’m extremely afraid of roller coasters. Instead we went on all of those nauseating rides that, for some reason, I was completely comfortable about!

Ch.7 (Sparks)

Now Arlin and Skandar…

They were watching the movie, (a new chronicles…movie that he had starred in, if you must know!), feeling the least bit uncomfortable. Marlen and Aishah were so intrigued by the movie, that they had completely forgotten who they were with to even pay attention.

Several times, Skandar tried to pay attention to anyone but Arlin’s reaction to the film, but she was all he could look at.

“What?” He said.

“What?” Arlin asked back, confused and laughing at the same time.

“Uhm…are you liking my movie?” He finally got it out.

“Yes. I loved the first one, why wouldn’t I like the sequel?”

“Hmmmm…good point.” He patted her hand, softly brushing the layer of skin as an excuse to touch her.

“Your hand is so soft!” It slipped from his mouth.

“Thanks…? It’s an off-day to not hear a compliment on the softness of my hand!” Her sarcasm boomed. He laughed, sighing.

As Skandar pulled his hand away, Arlin felt how cold she instantly got.

When the movie was over, everyone went from complete and utter darkness to the plain, fluorescent lighting of the mall.

“Ah!” Arlin’s sensitive eyes screamed to be closed.

Nick had the same reaction. They practically mimicked each other.

“Oh my…” Arlin blinked a couple of times. “All better!”

“Are you sure?” Skandar worried.

“Don’t worry!” Marlen reassured. “She’ll be fine!”

“Okay then.” He smiled.

Arlin was about ready to go on, when Skandar grabbed for her hand.

“What are you doing (not that it’s bothering me)?”

He chuckled. “Dancing with you in the mall, what does it look like?”

Arlin’s face was puzzled; enjoyably-puzzled.

Then she heard clearly, that melody…Twilight! It was Bella’s Lullaby!

“You read Twilight?”

“Yes I do!” He laughed a little, trying to get out the words. “Edward Cullen is dazzling!!!”

Arlin laughed as she swayed in Skandar’s arms. She rested her head on his shoulder.

“So, how is this happening, exactly?!” She finally spoke.

“What’s happening?”

“No offense, but, when there’s music like this, or any type, we Americans just walk around, humming and shopping. I didn’t really think that THIS would be going on!”

“Well, I have a few connections!”

Okay! Arlin thought to herself.

Suddenly…

“Arlin!”

“Keyra!…AND JOE JO-…”

“JONAS; yeah, I know. Hi Arlin!”

“Oh, hello. I’m Skandar Keynes.”

“Hey Joe.”

“ ’Sup, Nick?!”

They did their handshake.

Keyra rolled her eyes at how long it took for two brothers, who TOUR all around the world together, to do a handshake.

“So, what are you guys doing here?” Nick finally says something!

“Oh, you know, walking around, getting chased by fans, stuff like that! HAHAHA!” Joe responded.

Keyra laughed. “So, I chase you around?? Is THAT who this is??”

“Hey, HEY Baby! No, no, no…” Joe apologized.

“Haha! You should have seen your face!” She pointed.

“HA!” Joe said.

“Arlin, are you hungry? Because Joe and I were just about to go eat something…” Keyra waited, holding Joe’s hand.

Skandar whispered in her ear, she nodded and he explained their…“situation”. (They decide to go eat, just not in the mall, but at some pizzeria!)

“We’re actually going out…” Skandar began; Keyra interrupted.

“Congratulations! You guys look so cute together!”

“What?!” Nick was shocked. “You go out to see one movie and now you’re going out?!”

Marlen and Aishah laugh. It all happened so quickly! Arlin hid her ‘blushing’ from Skandar.

“Oh, wh…not yet!” He smiled at her, gripping her hand tighter.

Arlin looked up at him a bit too quickly, almost feeling offended. Skandar held up Arlin’s chin with his thumb and index finger. Keyra covered Joe’s eyes. Nick laughed at his brother. Skandar sealed the last moments of silence with a kiss.

“Now, we’re dating.” He smiled down at her.

Arlin smiled cheezily, as always.

“I love it when you do that.” He smiled back at her.

She blushed.

“Well…that was nice.” Joe interrupted. Keyra shoved him.

“What?” Arlin asked.

“Nothing, nothing.” Keyra said.

Meanwhile, Noriette, my best friend from grade school, was at the mall with a couple of friends. She passed right by the scene of people and superstars…backing up in the process!

Nick, part of the ‘scene of people and superstars’, was barely paying attention, feeling left out, almost.

Hey! He thought.

Oh my GOD! It’s Nick Jonas! Okay…okay! Stay calm…even if he’s coming straight towards me…

“HE’S COMING STRAIGHT TOWARDS ME!!” She screamed under her breath.

Noriette was standing next to a gumball machine. Nick was inches from her.

“Oh, gum!” (?) Nick used the excuse of gum to get closer to her.

“Hi.” He said.

Noriette froze in her tracks.

“H-hi.” She responded a second later.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” He asked.

“Uh…No?” She nodded sarcastically.

He laughed. “You’re pretty AND funny? Nice!”

She blushed slightly.

“So…how’s it goin’?” She started up some small talk with him.

“…” He took the moment to laugh at that, “Oh, you know, walking around the mall, getting chased by fans…Usual stuff.” He laughed.

“Oh!” She laughed.

They laughed. (Basically, there was a lot of laughing going on at the moment.)

Nick’s friends were all wondering why he was taking so long at the gumball machine-and then noticed the pretty girl that he was talking to, then called to him and said they’d meet him outside when he was ready-which wasn’t going to be for a while!

Anyway, Let’s finished up PerryLenys’s date, shall we?

So, as we had left off, Perry and I were out with Keyra and Joe, bowling and kicking butt as we did it! Perry and I had our big strike (kiss.) Joe was extremely jealous of that- And the fact that Keyra had wont the game. HA! Then, Perry and I left to start our date, where he surprised me, once again, with how sweet he was! The Carnival on a first date was the most perfect of perfect first dates! The roller coaster-not so much! I guess since I’m a girl (and I really HATE stereotypes, but I’ll have to make an exemption) that I should be a wimp! We rode the death trap.

“Hey! Hey, it’s okay!” Perry comforted me. He hugged me, stroking my hair and face.

I nodded hesitantly. “I’m okay! Well,…that’s embarrassing!”

He laughed. “I’m sorry! If I’d known you’d get like this, I would have dumped the idea.” He was hugging me tightly to his chest. My arms were wrapped around his neck, fingers intertwined. I giggled softly, whispering softly in his ear, “Take me home?”

He nodded.

He gave me a piggy ride to the car.

ARLIN WAS IN OODLES OF TROUBLE IF SHE DIDN’T GET HOME SOON!

I got a phone call on the ride home, one of my missed calls of the night!

“Aren’t you gonna get that?” Perry asked me. (Silly boy!)

“No.”

He shrugged. After a minute or two, he asked how I was feeling.

I nodded. “I’m fine. Just overwhelmed was all.” I smiled at him.

He smiled back. “Good. Because…there was one more thing that I wanted to show you.”

I looked at him, confused.

“Don’t worry, there are no roller coasters at this place.”

“HahaHA!”

He kissed me at the stoplight, since he was the one who had to drive.

Ch.8 (Just Kiss Me.)

We passed by the cinema, where they were giving a movie with Skandar Keynes in it. That’s when it hit me. Because we ALL know that Arlin could not resist!

“Hello?” She answered right away. She’s good!

“Hey Arlin! How are you holding out at the house?”

“Oh, good. Eating something.” It was totally quiet.

“You went out, didn’t you?!”

She started to speak, but I cut her off.

“We’ll talk about it when I get home!” I said, hanging up first.

“Oh crap!” Arlin thought out loud. She stood up, startled.

“What?” Skandar asked; He did the same.

“You have to go, NOW!”

“Why?!…I mean, I wouldn’t want to go now!”

“I’m sorry! I had a great time!”

“Me too!” He grabbed her face gently into his hands, bringing her closer to him. He smiled at her first, making sure that she’d be okay with that. Although it was obvious that she was!

          He kissed her lips gently. His tongue slipped into her mouth, where hers awaited anxiously. (They were kissing passionately. It had to be done! Surprisingly, Skandar and Arlin knew exactly how to do it.) Skandar touched her face, feeling the smoothness of her cheeks. Their tongues had their own battle inside their mouths. Arlin wrapped her arms around his pale, white neck. Finally after about ten minutes, Skandar pulled away, sadly, making it end all too soon. Arlin’s mind was clouded. Skandar was breathing heavily, his forehead against hers. He smiled at her, said “bye,” and then left out the door. Arlin was sitting on her bed, then laid down, mesmerized as soon as he left. She practiced her breathing.

Meanwhile, PerryLenys…

“Where are we?” My eyes were shut tight.

“Step inside.”

“With my eyes closed?!” I didn’t want to fall.

“I’ve got you, it’s okay.”

“Yes, it is,” I muttered.

He ignored me.

We walked inside. My eyes were still closed. It was warm inside the dark place. It smelled like…vanilla?

“Mmm…’ I took in the sweet vanilla. He scrambled around.

“Okay; open your eyes.”

It was bright. There were frames hanging around. Paintings. Artsy.  The view was amazing. The shore. The waves were coming in and out. The window was enormous! There was even a boardwalk leading to the beach. Some backyard!

“Wow!” I gasped at the view.

“I know. But you have no idea how amazing it looks right now!”

He stared at me as I stood in front of the window, the wind blowing in my face. My hair blew wildly.

I blushed. He had no idea how amazing this was for me too!

“…I, um…want to show you something,” He walked around, looking for something, “Please, make yourself at home!…Um, do you want anything?”

You. “Nothing. It’s fine, thank you.” I said.

“Okay.” He bit his lips, smiling. He went on, coming back in a couple of minutes.

“…I tend to think a lot, and well, I draw what I think about.” He came to sit down next to me. He handed me a paper from the top.

“This one took me awhile…I wanted to get it down perfectly.”

It was…me. I was being drawn by my boyfriend! crazy!

“ Oh, my gosh!” I observed myself in the drawing. It was like staring into an animated mirror; “Wow! These are really good!…It’s , amazing, actually!…” I turned to him.

“You didn’t tell me you could draw!” I accused him.

“It slipped.” He shrugged.

“Perry, what I meant to say was, ‘You didn’t tell me you could mirror your thoughts!!!’ These, everything about you,….ahh! You’re amazing!”

I gave up explaining what he was to me. Only because ‘amazing’ didn’t just cut it! He was: glorious, sweet, smart, caring, passionate; the exact replica of the Perry I used to dream about 24/7. He was all of that and so much more.

He smiled at me. “You’re everything I always knew you’d be…” He took that pause to touch my cheek with the back of his hand, “and so much more.” He leaned in closer towards me. I went forward, mirroring his actions. He stared into my eyes; I stared into his deep, blue eyes; He brushed my bottom lip with his index finger. I blushed uncontrollably. Perry smirked at my blushing, not enough for me to notice. He pulled me in to begin one of the greatest kisses of my life! The want, the need, the desire: all the same but all there, differently expressed.

Perry’s kisses had never been so intense, but all at once, it was just as sincere as the first; only longer, and more passionate and longer. When he pulled away to catch some air, I practically fell to the couch, where we had picked up where we’d left off. His tongue softly traced the outside of my lips. I was hyperventilating. I opened my eyes, knowing that I was killing the moment, but needing to look at him. His eyes were watching me. I nodded an “okay” and his tongue found mine. My fingers wove into each other around his neck, moving up to knit them into his pitch black hair. This time, I pulled him away to catch my breath. I rested my head back, onto the couch. He grinned at me. I looked up at the ceiling still learning how to inhale and remembering how to exhale. My hands were shaking, I didn’t know why, but I hope it was because I was hyperventilating.

Perry tried not to laugh at my reaction to…that. He tried to help the situation by doing the same, later realizing that he truly needed it! He looked at me, head still rested on the couch. I looked at him. He smiled. I returned the gesture. Then he spoke.

“Let’s take you home.” He reached for my hand.

Ch.9 (Mm-hmmm;D)

When I finally got home, Arlin was sleeping. I was too mesmerized to even argue, not to mention walk or even think straight.

The Next Day…

Sun was brightly shining into my window and trying to get through my eyes. I wrenched them open, screaming, almost completely falling off of my bed! Arlin had apparently been staring at me sleep.

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!” Arlin and I screamed at each other.

She laughed, watching my reaction. My heart was drumming in my ears.

“Hi.” She said.

“…uh, hi?!” I was annoyed at my wake-up call.

“How’s it go-…”

“This is not a conversation over the phone! I’m right here…”

She laughed. “Sorry.”

“Speaking of…”

Uh-Busted!

“Okay, so maybe I left the house, but I was being mocked by your little sister and her friend. AND it just so happens that he DID notice me and he DID kiss me and I AM his GIRLFRIEND!!!” Arlin shouted out.

I waited, then spoke when I could feel her skin cool in her face.

“Are you done?” I asked calmly.

“Yes.” She waited for me to shout back at her, only differently.

“…What?” I asked.

“You’re not yelling. Aren’t you mad?”

“No. I’m not mad.”

“But you’re going to yell…”

“No.”

“Why?”

I stared at her, bewildered, then smiled. “Keyra called me while I was on my date and she had told me about you and Skandar when she had left a message. I know everything there is to know about him. He’s a pretty good guy. I trust you, too!” I scuffed up her hair.

“Hey!” She readjusted her long, black locks.

“You’re still just a teenager. Don’t screw this p and make it go too fast!”

“Ha! Of course not! What am I, stupid?!…Don’t answer that!” She put one finger in the air.

I waited a minute or two before we both burst into laughter.

“Don’t worry about it! I trust me too!” Arlin said, ungrammatically correct.

“I’m going to ask Marlen if she’s ready, because I’m picking her up from Aishah’s house! I’m going to go get ready.”

As I’m Getting Ready…  

I haven’t forgotten about Marlen, don’t worry! I sent Arlin to get Marlen, who was picking out some cute boys (Marlen, not Arlin!) with Aishah.

Arlin’s confused at why they were pointing at random little boys until she understood everything!

“Oh, wow! Dylan and Cole Sprouse…huh.” She said, staring at Marlen and Aishah. “This should be fun.” She sat down somewhere and stared, almost too casually.

15 Minutes Later…

“Arlin, Arlin! Guess what?” Marlen jumped up and down.

“What?” Her mouth tried not to hang too open.

“Cole and Dylan invited us to go see a live broadcasting of their show!”

“They couldn’t have said, ‘a movie’ ?!”

“That’s so, so much better than a movie!” Aishah stated.

“Well, duh!” Marlen said.

Marlen and Aishah talked on and on about their double date with the twins, and Arlin just looked at them as she walked them home. Suddenly, her phone saved her from hearing any more details.

“Hello?” She answered.

“Arlin?” Skandar answered back with his deep English accent that made her swoon.

“Hi.” She smiled, showing her mouthful of grillZ (braces).

“Hello.” He replied.

Moments of silence, a breath or two inhaled and exhaled almost too harshly.

“So…?” Arlin started.

“I missed you.” Skandar told her.

“I missed you too.” She said, smiling again.

“Why is she all ‘smiley’?” Marlen asked aloud.

“Are you talking to you…” Aishah stared at Marlen.

“BOYFRIEND?!” They said together.

Arlin smiled nervously.

“Tell them it’s a ‘yes’.” He told her smoothly.

“Okay.” She did as she was told.

“OOOOOH!” Aishah and Marlen yelled.

“ANYWAY…!” Arlin said.

“Meet me, today…I…need to see you.” Skandar told her.

It was quiet.

“Okay.” She giggled.

“Cool. Stop by my house, here, then.” He said. He gave her the address, too.

“Okay.” She had it written down and ready to go.

At Skandar’s…

Arlin did seem to notice that she had no idea what his house had ever looked like. He didn’t even live in the United States! Suddenly, she found the place he had said was his “house” and knocked on the door.

“Skandar?” She called.

The door opened. He motioned for her to come inside.

“Thanks.” She said.

He closed the door quietly.

“Why is it so dark?!” She yelled, nervous.

“Calm down, Arlin! I’m just trying to be romantic!” He took her through the dark room, over to the dark dining room with the candles down yonder.

“Oh my gosh! Skandar!” She slapped his arm lightly.

“What?!” It confused him to see her react to what he did. Normally, Arlin would usually just gasp, not hit him.

“I’m sorry!” She laughed, “Did you do this all for me?”

“For US. I wanted to see you tonight because I have to spend as much time with you as possible.” He said.

Arlin was a bit shocked. She really wanted to ask him why, but she held it in. Skandar stared at her, waiting for her to ask him something.

“What?” She stared at him, confused at how awkwardly silent it was, not so much the things he was saying.

“Nothing.” He grabbed out for her hand. Suddenly, he got up, pulling Arlin with him.

“What are you doing??” Arlin whispered, smiling slightly.

“SHH!” He took Arlin’s hands and wrapped them around the back of his neck. He put his hands on either sides of her waist. Arlin blushed slightly. They danced to the city sounds. It was pretty quiet throughout the rest of their time together. Arlin got extremely comfortable and laid her head on his chest. Skandar rested his head on hers. Arlin closed her eyes and drifted into her own ‘La La Land’ as Skandar held her in his arms.

Moments like these are never to be wasted. There’s always a way to keep it all together and stay ‘in sync’. We’re young now, but what if you let time pass you by? What if you love someone now, but not forever like you’d promised? I mean, sure, it happens. We’re only humans; we only have desire on our minds; we only like to live for the moment not knowing it’s all we have; it’s all we care for. That’s exactly true about Skandar. He was only human. He could only live in the moment as a rushed life of Hollywood and fame; he could only want so much as to what was given to him; he would only love as much as he felt he was loved back. But with Arlin…It was all very different. This terrain was very foreign and new. She was his want, his need, his moment; except he didn’t want anything to do with the lack of time to appreciate it. Skandar knew how much he loved her. He knew how much he wanted to be with her. From the beginning of it all…the black haired beauty from the cinema, that was his calling of desire.

After Arlin turned around and noticed him-the expression on her face, just what he had hoped for- his face lit up more than he’d ever known possible.

For as long as he had known, he’d always been happy with his early start in his career. He adored the Narnia fans. His cast had become one of his greatest buddies. Somehow, someway he felt empty; unamused. It was as if he was waiting for that meteor to shoot across his sky; As if he was waiting for Arlin to catch his eye all along.

“Why are you so quiet?” Arlin asked him, lifting up her head to stare into his eyes.

Skandar returned the look. “No reason. I just don’t find that there is anything to say, really.”

“…Oh?”

“Well, yeah. I just thought that you could hear everything I was saying.”

Arlin was confused. “Skandar, maybe it’s just me,…but I’m no Edward Cullen!” Arlin laughed to herself.

Skandar joined in. “What I mean is: ‘When it gets really quiet like this, I just feel like we can hear each others’ secrets.’ ”

Skandar came close to her left ear and whispered, “Close your eyes. Empty out any thoughts and listen carefully.”

She did as she was told. Skandar began to whisper in her ear.

“You are one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen, do you know that? That’s exactly what I was thinking that day that I thankfully noticed you out of all of those insane girls,” he laughed, “No offense, but fans get pretty crazy!

Okay, okay! Seriously, though… Pretty is just when you were turned around and your back was facing me. I never told anyone this, but, as soon as you turned around, I forgot how to breath. You were literally breath-taking!”

Arlin giggled. “I hope I ended up being breath-returning!”

“Oh, but of course!” He continued whispering in her ear, “And thanks to you being breath-returning, I spoke to you! I was clearly at the point where, and don’t laugh, but, either you were going to act like a fan and attack me with your endless shrieks or I was going to faint!”

“WHAT??” She covered her mouth.

“SHH! You can tell me your secrets when I’m done!”

“Okay! Fine!” Arlin said. She laughed at him.

“Com’on! I’m being serious!” He laughed, almost too quietly to try to be serious. “Okay,” He whispered, “So, I was thinking, as you were staring at me staring at you, that you thought that I was some kind of idiot or something.” He laughed, cocking his head back, “I was hoping you’d say ‘yes’…”

“Why…” She stared at him, starting to ask a question.

Skandar lifted his head up, looking at her. He smiled, letting her speak.

“Why wouldn’t I have said ‘yes’?”

“…I…don’t know.”

Arlin shrugged her shoulders.

Ch.10 ( GEEZ SKANDAR!)

They stopped dancing after a long discussion that they were having about their first impressions of each other. Skandar and Arlin went out to the balcony and sat on the stairs that were their own part of the boardwalk to the beach.

“Oh my gosh!” Arlin was flabbergasted.

“What?” Skandar asked her.

“It’s all so…” Arlin almost couldn’t continue.

“Beautiful?” He finished her fragment. “Yes. I always thought that you were.” Skandar touched her cheek lightly with the back of his hand.

“It’s all perfect. Everything. You. Me. This…place! I love it!” She told him.

“So, you really liked everything?”

She nodded.

“That’s good. I hoped you would.” Skandar told her, brushing her lips with his finger.

“Mm-hm!” She started cracking up.

“What?” What did I say?” He asked her.

“It was in Prince Caspian…” She paused to laugh, “I was watching the movie with the audio commentary…”

He stared at her, raising his left eyebrow.

“Uhm…yeah…you said that.” Arlin blushed with embarrassment.

He tried to remember, failing in the process. He laughed anyway to ease her embarrassment.

“Mm-hm!” He said for her to hear in person. Arlin laughed. She kissed him on the cheek. He said it again.

Arlin laughed, then gave him a sly look. He returned it. The stars were attempting to shine throughout the sky, but it just seemed like there were enough lights in the city, so it didn’t really matter!

Arlin actually searched his face for a kiss this time! Oh man! She was smiling as Skandar came to stop at her lips. Skandar touched her face, cupping his hand to the shape of her jaw. Arlin’s eyes were closed. Skandar started to stand up; Arlin started to pull away; to her surprise (actually, not really!) Skandar didn’t let her!  He tripped backwards, landing on his back. Good thing the sofa was right behind them! Arlin gasped. Skandar barely budged. Geez, Skandar!!!

“Oh my gosh! Are you okay?”

“Better!” He really wanted to continue, but remembered the reason why he had told her that he wanted her to spend as much time with her as possible…He kissed her lips one more time, pulling her closely to his chest on the couch.

Arlin breathed heavily against his chest, clouded in her head by Skandar’s sweet kisses, as always.

“Arlin…this is too much! And it’s going to be harder to do anything that I wanted to accomplish.”

“What are you trying to accomplish…exactly?” She lifted her head and rested her chin on his chest.

“I’m going to miss you so much…” Skandar mumbled to himself.

“What are you talking about??” She almost shouted.

“Arlin, you don know that I haven’t given up my career and I pretty much do this for a living…Well, I sorta have this movie that I something, and , well, movies take a while to get worked on…”

“Okay…” Arlin tried to understand.

“Well, yes, um…I’m pretty sure that I’m getting picked for someTHING in this movie and I really want US to be okay; I want you to be okay with this, the whole ‘me going away for a wildly long amount of time’ thing…I’d really miss you if I ever had to go away too long! You know?” He stared deeply into her eyes.

“I, well, you know…what are we going to do about that?” Arlin faked a half-dead smile on her face.

“Don’t give me that.” He looked at her.

“What?”

“Give me a real expression; one that you’re actually feeling.”

She stayed with her choice of a half-dead cheezy smile. Skandar grabbed her face and tried to make more acceptable facial expressions with it: angry, sad, infuriated, jealous…etc.

“There.” Skandar finished rearranging her facial expressions.

“What do I look like?” She asked, curious.

“You look,…upset…,a bit understanding…and in love.”

Arlin blushed. Skandar looked all around her face, searching for anger. He reeled her in, closer to his lips, her face was still in his hands.

“I will NEVER forget you. It’s impossible to do that…” He brushed his nose up and down from her nose to her lips, then back to her nose, “I love you too much.”

Arlin kissed him, her saltwater tears escaped her eyes at an acceptable pace. Skandar felt his cheek getting a hint of moisture. He stopped kissing her, looking at her eyes. Arlin tried to look away.

“Don’t cry, Arlin.” He wiped away her tears.

“I’m happy for you…,really!” She wept on his chest.

They were still lying uncomfortably on the couch. Skandar didn’t say a word. Arlin let everything out that night. She fell asleep, curled up on Skandar’s chest.

“Don’t worry Arlin, I’ll figure out when I come back. I’ll be with you soon enough.” He kissed the top of her head.

Ch.11 (Nickette)

So Nick, what’s the deal with you and Noriette?!

The last time these two ever saw each other was at that mall outing where the both of them happened to have been with their friends. Nick, with his brothers and their girlfriends, where Kevin and Yas had gone to get some coffee and talk. Noriette was with her buddies and along came Jonas! She had been standing next to a gumball machine for some apparent reason (?) and Nick was walking straight towards her. He had purchased a gumball as an excuse to talk to her…And, well…they talked, alright!!! They asked each other questions about movies, music, life, friends, family, any other interests besides the apparent (Nick and Noriette were definitely on the same page with the interests!) So later on, they exchanged information, Nick’s info being a little more limited to phone number and e-mail address, and decided to make plans.

“Hello?” Noriette answered her phone as she sped down the stairs with her bag.

“Hey, it’s me.” Nick said.

“I’m walking out the door right now…!” She trailed off as she saw what was waiting for her from outside her house.

“Hi there.” Nick was outside, in some nice, tight jeans, a really cool graphic t-shirt and his green, white and black checker-laced converses.

“Um, you look great…,as always.” Noriette told him, hoping that he didn’t hear her. He smirked at her, slightly. He heard that!

“You look great, too! From what I’ve seen so far!”

“Uh!” She patted his arm lightly.

He laughed, getting a little red. “That didn’t come out the way it was supposed to!”

“Oh really, now?!” She interrupted him.

“Um, seriously though, I’ve only seen you about two times in my life, this one included, and you’ve looked really great every time!”

Noriette felt a little dumb, “Oh…um, thanks.”

He laughed. “Com’on, let’s go!” He grabbed her hand.

Noriette and Nick went to the car, where Big Rob was taking over the car as chouffer. Nick and Noriette talked on their way to the most amazing miniature golf course ever!

“Aaaaaawwwww!” Noriette shrieked.

“Do you like it?” Nick asked her.

“Yes!…But, um, I’ve never been to one of these mini-golf places.” She confessed.

“It’s okay. I have been to a couple. I’ll show you the ropes.” He winked at her.

Noriette blushed.

They stepped out, rented their clubs and started off. Nick demonstrated and Noriette looked more than attentive.

“Com’on, here…I’ll show you.” He grabbed her hand, stood behind her and positioned that same hand on the club. Noriette “pretended” that she couldn’t do any of it properly as an excuse for Nick to have to touch her even more! (wink, wink.) Nick, not being born yesterday, automatically knew what game she was playing, and asked her to try it on her own so that he could see whether she was paying attention or not. Noriette was actually paying very close attention so she wouldn’t look stupid and she scored a bit too perfectly for just a beginner.

Nick was in awe. “Are you sure you’ve never played this game before?” Nick smiled at her.

Noriette smiled at him and nodded.

During the rest of the game, obviously Nick was in the lead, him and his love and patience for golf, but Noriette was right behind him. They were practically competing against each other! Afterwards, they summed up the scores, with Nick, of course, as the winner. He did his little “victory dance” and Noriette stared at him. Nick cleared his throat and stood still.

“Are you hungry?” Nick asked her.

“Um…actually I have to probably start heading home…Can I get a ride?” She asked, seeming embarrassed.

“Did you really actually consider the thought of you walking all the way home, by yourself?” Nick asked her.

“Oh, right.”

“I’ll take you, of course!” Nick said, grabbing her hand.

At Noriette’s Front Porch…

Nick got the chance to quickly get her home, safe and sound. They were standing right outside her house. Noriette and Nick were both staring away from each other, at the sky. Noriette turned back to look at Nick, who was still staring at the sky. Noriette stared at his face, his lips, and his hair-every bit of perfection. She had the sudden urge to touch him, his face, his lips-more so with her own- instead of just his hands.

Nick finally came to look at her, right when she attacked his lips as quickly as she could with her own! She was too embarrassed to pull away, and she didn’t want to, so she kept kissing him. Nick, of course, being a guy, didn’t just stand there taking it all in for himself, he also kissed her back, which made Noriette very happy and she felt a lot better when she kissed him because she knew that he was kissing her back! Noriette’s sisters were coming to the door, Noriette tried to become unresponsive towards Nick’s kisses. It worked to the point that he stepped back slightly to ask her what was wrong. The door opened.

“That.” Noriette simply told him.

“Hi!” Nick greeted the girls.

“Mmmmmmm!!!” They screamed in muffles. (They were covering their mouths.)

“…Okay, then. I’ll see you later, Noriette.” He let go of her hand, hers slipping out of his grasp.

Can’t really tell you that hat was the last time that they saw each other…because it wasn’t.

Several Days Later…

Nick called Noriette, who was working at the time, but she couldn’t just avoid him because of that fact. She picked up and spoke as quickly as possible.

“Meet me on my lunch break, maybe?” She asked.

“Of course!”

Noriette was biting her lips on the other end of the line.

“Gotta go, bye!”

‘Love you, bye!” Nick hung up.

Noriette sighed, and when she took a good look at the clock, went back to work.

The day dragged and Noriette was organizing products and other things. The clock tolled. Nick time was getting closer.

Ch.12 (Home at Work)

Meanwhile, PerryLenys…

Ah, yes, the primary couple of the whole story shows up! Well, they’ve been busy, what with Perry getting promotion and Darlenys’s work was catching up with her. Much more time to be inseparable!

The thing is we don’t let things get in the way, we just take advantage of them and help each other get through them.

Today, I was super-busy with a couple of logo-designs for three or four big and new companies! I had no time for almost anything, not even Perry! -Or so I thought. Perry would usually try and calm me down when I got all “angsty” when it came to work. I was lucky enough to work at home, that way I could spend some time with the girls, Marlen and Arlin. This fact also allowed Arlin ,the oldest of my “roomies,” to have a life. Lately, she’s been hanging out at Skandar’s place. Every time I ask, call or even talk to her, she just simply stares back at me and then-nothing. She tells me everything’s okay with her and Skandar-whenever I can get something out of her. Other than that, he’s here with her at home. It’s nice that Arlin has Skandar. I really appreciate him keeping her occupied. And he’s really smart, so it’s nothing like that! He never seems to bring her down or anything. She’s just been a little,…melancholy. My phone rang.

“Hello?” I said, almost breathless when I saw who was calling.

“Hey.” Perry said, “Are you okay? I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages! How’s the logo-de-…”

“Don’t say it!”

He paused.

“It’s…I got one done. I’m on my way to the second one. Arlin’s been worrying me. I don’t know what I’ve been doing lately because I can’t remember and…UHH! My head is spinning from how crazy life’s been!”

“Hey, hey! Calm down, Darlenys! Look, do you need any help? I just finished locking up and I have Chinese!”

“Hmmm!” I sighed, chuckling. “Okay. I mean, will you? Could you, really?” I thought about what he had said about locking up. “Wait, you said you just locked up NOW?”

“Yeah. There’s this huge inspection of the café and I’m in big trouble-the fired, kind- if I don’t make sure that everything’s perfect!”

“Oh. That sounds tough!”

“Ehh, not really. Now, let’s say we help you out. Let me in.”

“You’re here already?” I walked to the door.

“Well, yeah. It sounded urgent.”

“Thank you, so much!” I hung up, running to hug him.

“Hi, there.” he said, his face near my hair.

“Hi.” I smiled at him, looking into his eyes.

“So, how’s about that work?”

I looked down in disgust.

“I’m just kidding. You look like you’ve been at this all day!”

“Pssht! More like all week.” We went inside after standing at the door in each others’ arms.

I sat on the couch, tugging on his hand to follow me.

“Uhh! I have no idea how I’m going to finish or how I’m going to live with myself if I don’t and…(blah, blah, blah…)”

Perry grabbed my lips with his thumb and index finger, pinching them almost.

“Hey! Calm down! You can definitely finish and, I mean, when it comes to how to finish, you did the first one, what’s so much if you do two more? Something nice and simple, right?”

“Hmm?”

Perry laughed; grabbing the left side of my face to reel me in closer to his lips. He unpinched my lips, only to press them against his own.

All the anxiety definitely went away. I was calmed. Perry handled me gently, weaving his fingers into my hair. I felt my hands moving up his chest, around his neck. He stopped, catching his breath.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He smiled. “Now, we should really get to work.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re here; after an extremely long day of work, you’re tired, and yet you come here to help me on something that I’ve apparently failed at doing myself.”

“And?” Perry questioned me.

“What? You’re not tired?”

“I’m here to help you. The last time I checked, you were desperate.”

I covered my face. “UHH!”

“Are you okay?”

“Overly-stressed disorder. I invented it.”

Perry laughed. He hugged me, rubbing my back.

“It happens to everyone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Whatever that was, back there.”

“I forgive you.” He smiled at me.

We got to work straight away. Perry spent the last four hours trying to figure out how to help. Thanks to him, I finished. The scary part would be presenting and hoping the boss likes it.

“Oh my gosh!!!” I kissed him. He picked me up. I said, almost crying with relief, “Thank you, thank you, thank you so, so much!” I kissed him again.

Perry smiled, laughing at me. “Sure, anytime!” He kissed me.

“You should get home. You’re probably really tired.”

“Um, well, yeah, but it’s okay.”

“Thanks again. Oh, and I’m sorry for going all ballistic on you back there.”

He laughed, remembering, “It’s okay. You look adorable when you’re mad, by the way.”

“Do I, now?” I said, sarcastically.

He kissed my lips one more time, hugged me and left.

Ch.13 (It’s The Best Day Ever!)

Finally, some Skandarlin…

Arlin and Skandar have been spending all their time together. They’ve be remorsing Skandar’s soon-to-be-departure. Skandar was told that he had to leave for a big movie and Arlin’s left to mourn over the fact that she doesn’t really hang out with anyone but her boyfriend, meaning, Skandar. (Meaning, this is not New Moon.)

Skandar hates seeing Arlin this way which is why he’s decided to keep as much contact with Arlin as he possibly can.

“Arlin?” Skandar knocked on the door of her room.

He had come to see her.

“Coming!” Arlin unlocked the door.

“Hey.” She said.

Skandar stared at her with steady eyes. He got closer and touched her lips with his finger.

Arlin hyperventilated.

“Hi.” His face was inches from hers; she could feel his breathing under her nose.

Arlin stood perfectly still; Skandar stepped into her room. He’d never set foot in it before. He shut the door. Oh mannn.

Arlin was frozen. Skandar came back to her. Arlin stepped back, wary.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re leaving today, aren’t you?”

Skandar looked away. He went to touch her face, his thumb lightly stroking her cheek.

Arlin looked away from his gaze.

“Tomorrow.”

Arlin bit her lip. She squeezed her eyes shut and laid her head against his chest. Skandar laid his head against her head. Arlin began to cry. Skandar lifted his head from hers and took her chin in his hand.

“Oh, no you don’t!”

“Huh?”

“I came here to have the best day ever with you!”

“How can I not cry if I only have TODAY to be with you?”

“It’s possible. Just think, I mean, of course I’ll miss you so much that I’ll eventually go crazy, but if we fantasize about today, it’ll keep us happy to the point that we’ll pay attention to that, and not the days you haven’t seen me, or I you.”

“What are you talking about? That’s not even as good as me touching you or kissing you?!”

“Well, no. But I’m sure it will suffice.”

“Skandar…”

“Just try. I mean, we could have an amazing day today and I’ll try and keep in touch whenever I’m not doing anything.”

Skandar looked at Arlin and she just nodded, slowly, but it was still a nod.

Skandar smiled. “That’s my girl.” He kissed her once. (Wow, that was very macho of you.)

“So…What are we going to do?”

“You’re serious? You can’t think of anything to do?”

She shook her head.

“Arlin, I’m here and you’re here.(and there’s furniture;D justkiddingg!) To me, there’s always something we can do.”

“Huh?”

“We can be with each other, silly.” Skandar explained, touching the tip of her nose.

“And do what?” Arlin was obviously already hyperventilating.

Skandar raised his eyebrows slyly. He kissed her. Arlin wrapped her arms around his neck. Skandar picked her up and carried her to her bed. Skandar kissed Arlin with a passion that should be illegal in fifty states. Arlin tried not to pant as she breathed, but it was utterly impossible not to! Skandar’s hands ran through her hair; Arlin’s hands as well. Skandar kissed Arlin like he was never ever going to see her again. He lingered on her lips, his, then moving hastily towards her neck. Arlin got a chance to breathe. Skandar turned so that he was hovering over Arlin’s body. Skandar and Arlin stared at each other in astonishment, or rather, catching their breaths. Skandar kept looking at Arlin. She attempted to breath, but as soon as she inhaled one deep breath, Skandar’s mouth was on hers. Not complaining, but, needing a breath otherwise, she responded to his keenness. Their bodies laid on top of one another’s, touching ever so slightly, yet they could both feel the heated warmth, even through their clothes. Now, they weren’t going to be stupid and screw everything up, but a little “making out” wasn’t going to hurt anybody-or could it?

Skandar stayed with Arlin for as long as he possibly could. They both knew that  they would have to leave each other eventually, but they tried to fit in as much time as they possibly could.

They laid next to each other, staring at each other, trying to memorize every possible facial expression that each of them made. Skandar was willing to leave, of course for his career, but not without memorizing his beloved girlfriend’s face. Only on opposite day would a movie be more important to him than Arlin.

Ch.14 (Skandar’s Departure)

Today was the day. Skandar stared at Arlin as she slept and played idly with her hand. It was almost four in the morning; Monday. Arlin started school today and Skandar started working on his acting and memorizing lines for shooting, etc. He’d spent all night thinking of ways to keep in contact with Arlin. He came up with I.M. and video chats. It was perfect!…except for the time-zone problem.

Arlin moved around , still feeling to see if Skandar had left.

“I’m here, Arlin.” He reached for her hand, sliding his fingers through her hand.

“Oh my gosh!” She wrenched her eyes open and threw her arms around his neck and cried. Skandar rubbed her back, resting his head into her neck, kissing it.

Arlin calmed down after a few seconds and came to the realization that they could always call each other, or e-mail, or even I.M.

“Skandar?” Arlin started to ask.

“Yes?”

“Will you-would you still love me, even if you had to stay longer than necessary?”

Skandar didn’t hesitate in answering back. “Of course I will! Arlin, there are phones and computers in England! And I’m even going to change my cell phone plan and switch to your phone’s company, so that we can talk for as long as we please and not get charged for it! Who knows? I might like it better than my crappy cell phone company!”

“Let’s hope so!” Arlin’s face lit up, “That would mean that I’d get to talk to you all the time!”

“Yes, and it wouldn’t be that bad, staying up late so that you can get a good night’s sleep! I mean, you’re starting school, now, and I’m a little used to staying up really late, so I really don’t mind!” Skandar told her.

“Well, yeah, I mean, if that’s okay with you, but I really don’t think that those teachers of mine would appreciate me drooping my head and eyelids in their classrooms!” Arlin laughed.

“Yeah, me either. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble because you’ve been staying up all night talking to me!” Skandar laughed as well.

“Oh, and we could text each other! I always have my phone with me!” Skandar offered.

“Okay!” Arlin seemed eager to be on her phone 24/7, texting Skandar non-stop. Skandar was happy that she was happy; enthralled, more like it.

It was five forty-five in the morning and Arlin and Skandar were going on and on about the ‘brick in the middle of their road’ and how they were apparently going around it.

“Okay, I now this might sound a bit absurd, but, would you mind if we did video chats? I mean, I wouldn’t want to miss a thing about your life while I’m stuck in in England, away from the best, most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me! Would that be okay, I mean once in a while?” Skandar’s eyes were pleading.

Arlin tried to hide the smile that seemed to be forming around the edges of her lips. “Sure, Skandar. I’d love that!” She smiled, looking at him.

Skandar exhaled a long-held breath. “Oh! Thank goodness! I thought that it was going to be weird or something!”

Arlin laughed at his reaction. Skandar actually tried to hide the slight embarrassment that he felt. Arlin kissed him on the lips, after having seen that it was time for her to get up either way.

“Arlin?” Marlen called from the bathroom.

Arlin and Skandar panicked and Skandar then, thought quickly.

“It’s your turn!” Marlen burst  through the door to tell Arlin to get ready for school.

“Thanks, Marlen!”

Marlen went, closing the door behind her. Skandar came out from behind the door and went to Arlin’s bed again.

“I’ve got to go! I’m not sure that I’ve packed everything! I’ll text you as soon as I can! Bye Arlin!”

Arlin ran over to Skandar and practically jumped on him. He caught her, staring at her lips, that we already, so remaining space between their faces.

“Okay, okay! Go…pack your bags! I’ve got to go to school, Skandar!”

“You’re so mean!”

“What?”

“Just kidding?”

“No.” Arlin laughed

“I guess not.” Skandar agreed, giving her one last peck on the lips.

“Arlin! Are you done yet?!” I called after her.

“Yeah!” She said.

“Skandar, how are you going to get out of here?” Arlin asked him.

“Don’t worry about me! I don’t want you to get in trouble this early!” He said.

“If Darlenys catches you here, you will get me in trouble!”

“Er, right.” Skandar waited a little, then started to sneak out quietly.

“If someone finds you, I had nothing to do with it!” Arlin whispered, trying to almost shout quietly.

“Okay!” Skandar said sarcastically.

Arlin’s first day of school dragged on and on. New teachers, new school, new faces. There never seemed to be anything old, recognizable. It was around math class that she’d wished that there were some way to be able to sleep with her eyes wide open, but not obvious like she was in some trance.

“Hey,” If it weren’t for Skandar and the way that they altered each other irrevocably, and irrationally also…

Arlin turned to hear the voice that would get her through math class…Hayden Christensen. Of course any creature with a name like that would have the face and body to go along with it.

“Uh, yeah?” Arlin responded, then tried to get a grip on her ridiculous reactions,-sweating, breathing almost too unevenly, staring- or at least trying not to.

“Skandar wouldn’t do the same,” She thought immediately.

Her phone sent a vibe through her whole body.

“Can I borrow an eraser?” Hayden, the god from above, asked Arlin.

Smoothly, she frantically reached for her pencil, almost throwing it at him, from how eager she was for him to erase all of his mistakes.

Arlin focused on her phone’s sudden thorough massage throughout her body. It was Skandar. Suddenly, the Hayden reaction seemed almost absurd.

Skandar wrote: “What are you doing right now? I miss you like crazy!!! I’ve boarded a train and a plane so far. Help me!”

Arlin laughed slightly. She texted him back, writing: Pssht! You help me!! I’m in math!”

Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, she saw Hayden, the god from above, Christensen looking at her with the biggest smile that the heavens could have ever put on his face. Arlin tried not to get clammy fingers as she texted Skandar, but it was inevitable. He was just so….Oh, look, Skandar!

Skandar texted Arlin back: “Hahaha. Well, I guess you’re right. Good luck!”

Arlin sighed when she heard the bell ring. Finally!

Arlin texted him back: “Gee, thanks.” She picked up her stuff, getting ready to leave, only to find out that she still had history to deal with. Ugh!

In History,…

Arlin sat down next to her friend Jessica from Spanish. Jess was known as the gossiper and nothing more. (This included her talent for talking for a brief period of time non-stop.) Then, as soon as it was unfortunately possible, Christensen sat down next to her friend Jessica.

“Hey there, beautiful.” He sat down smoothly.

Jessica rolled her eyes, yet still managed to giggle. Arlin noticed the way that they were obviously flirting and was instantly comforted. “No more Christensen!”  She thought.

It’s not that he annoyed her. He had barely said more than a sentence-a question, actually. So why did his existence bother her so much? He gave her emotions. Not just any emotions, but the kind that made her feel like she was betraying Skandar’s love and affection towards her. It was as if she were untrustworthy towards herself for doing this to Skandar. Like she were ever capable of doing such a thing.

“Are you going to mind if I sit somewhere else?” Arlin said to Jessica.

“You don’t have to leave!” Christensen’s eyes were agonized.

“Yeah, I do, actually…I sit over there.” Arlin pointed near the door. She got up form the right side of the room (close to the windows) and sat in her seat.

She texted Skandar, “School’s okay, but, I still miss you,” and closed her phone, waiting on the final minute or two.(The bells didn’t always work.)

The bell was taking a little too long and Arlin was getting restless, moving in her seat, opening and closing her phone, twirling her hair….etc. Hayden, the god from above, Christensen, was watching her from across the room. He was sitting near Arlin’s friend Jessica, until Arlin looked in that direction and the seat’s empty. He was coming towards her to sit in front of her. The teacher was pretty strict on seats, but there were like five minutes left and he had left the room to copy some papers for the overhead on tomorrow’s lesson. Great! Arlin thought to herself.

“Hi, new girl.” He said, slyly.

“Hi, new guy? What, I don’t have name?”

“Well, apparently, neither do I!” He smiled the most dazzling of all smiles. Apparently, he thought he was Edward Cullen. He was wrong. He was Jacob Black; the way he tried to drive Arlin off of her road to Skandar, who couldn’t really do much since he was in England. She didn’t want to sound like a little school girl, wining to the teacher about this annoying kid who was pissing her off at the moment. She was just going to have to learn how to deal.

“Why don’t you tell me what I should call you?”

“I like Arlin for me, and hey, annoying kid for you!”

“Oh, Arlin. Hmm, that’s nice.” He smiled, “But, if it’s okay, I’d like to change my name…”

“Sorry, you’re going to have to take that up with whoever’s in charge of the name-changing business. I, for one, can’t help you, annoying kid.”

He smirked at her, then smiled. “Okay, so how’s about a nickname?”

“I’ll bite.”

He laughed. “I’ll go by Hayden,” the god from above, “Christensen.”

The bell rang and everyone was getting up from their seats.

“So…can I, you know, help you with anything, you know, since you’re new and all.”

“When I come to you for something, then we’ll see what you can help me with.”

Hayden tilted his head.

“See you around, Christensen.”

“My nickname’s Hayden.”

Arlin walked out the door.

Ch.15 (You just don’t get it?!)

The teacher dismissed the class, finally and Arlin sighed a big sigh of relief when she had been dismissed. That meant that she could finally leave!

Arlin was so disoriented and tired! She just wanted to go get any other papers other than the first five she’d already been given (school info and general papers that are just “reading” and signing to approve of certain concerns.) she planned to head straight out the door and just lie down. As unbelievable as it was, today had been the longest day of her life!

As she walked home she was feeling a bit self-conscious of the cars. Apparently, there was one following her! She froze and turned around to sigh a sigh of aggravation when she took a look at the designated driver. It was Hayden Christensen. He rolled his window down and smiled at her.

“Hey new-I mean, Arlin.”

“Why hello, Christensen!” She smiled sarcastically.

“Need a lift? You seem tired. I could get you home quicker.”

“Thanks, but, really, I don’t live far from here.” She tried to be as sympathetic as possible. She wasn’t having the best day of her life to be able to feel many different emotions.

“Oh. Are you sure? How far away is it?”

“Um, I don’t know. Two or three minutes away from where we are now.”

“I can make it in one.”

She rolled her eyes. “Really, now?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Arlin started to have flashbacks of all the possible different ways to say that phrase. She immediately started to walk home as fast as she possibly could.

“BYE?!” Hayden yelled, suggestively.

She waved her hand back at his direction violently.

“What had I missed?” Hayden wondered to himself.

Arlin unlocked the door and dropped her bag next to the entrance and went straight to her room as soon as she entered the building where my apartment was.

She turned on her radio and put The Beatles on repeat on her ipod. She kicked her shoes off and got her laptop and turned it on. Arlin took a big sigh and went into her closet to pick out some shorts or sweats or anything that was loose enough or breathable in. She headed straight for her personal bathroom and took a hot shower. When she was drying herself off, she heard a beeping sound coming from her room; her laptop. She put her clothes on and looked to see what was wrong. There was some sort of video chat. She pressed “Accept” and screamed, forgetting that her microphone was on.

“Nice to finally hear you, Arlin.” Skandar smiled widely.

It was really him! Skandar Keynes. Her boyfriend. And he couldn’t wait to talk to her!!

“Arlin?” He said. “What’s wrong?”

Arlin was staring back at the screen, mesmerized. She hurried to fix her hair so that she wouldn’t look stupid once he saw her on her camera.

“Hi Skandar! I’ve missed you!” She said as soon as she was on her camera.

“Hi, Arlin! I’ve missed you more!” He said.

“I doubt that.” She replied sourly.

“Why?”

“You’ve probably got a lot of things on your mind, what with the movie and all. I don’t think there’s room in there for me.”

“Stop that! Of course I’m not going to say that I don’t already have a lot on my mind, but none of that’s pushing out what’s already been there.”

“Well in that case, then you win.”

“So, how was school?”

“Uh! Annoying!”

“Really?…You don’t mind if we don’t talk about it, then, do you?”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

“Well, I was just wondering if some day that you’re not doing anything…”

“Like today for example…” Arlin interrupted. Skandar smiled at her eagerness and continued.

“Well, if we could just talk, or stare at each other…?” He thought over what he said, but it still sounded really awkward and a bit psychotic.

“I’d love that, but…” She hesitated, trying not to be eager. Skandar started to speak but Arlin got in her last word.

“Could we actually do that today?”

“Um, sure.”

Arlin and Skandar talked on and on and on. Eventually, I came home and Arlin’s book bag was near the door. I figured that either she just left it there or that she was still excited about high school. That nerd. Whatever it was, because with Arlin you could expect either of those, it was nearly six thirty (p.m. of course!)

“Marlen? Arlin?” I shouted as I entered the apartment, laying my stuff down near the door.

Marlen ran over to greet me.

“Hey, Neni!” She wrapped her arms around my waist.

“Hi, Marlen! Did you have dinner yet?”

“A while ago, actually. I don’t know about Arlin, though. She’s been in her room since we got home from school.” Marlen told me.

“Okay. Thanks. You all set?” I asked her about her homework and chores.

“Yup.”

“That’s a first.” I muttered.

Marlen went back to her doll-playing. I walked over to Arlin’s door and knocked.

“Arlin?”

“Oh my gosh!” Arlin whispered, shifting her weight carefully and adjusting the volume.

“Yeah?” She shouted at the door’s direction.

“Can I come IN?” I shouted back.

“Its open!”

I opened the door and looked around for a while. She looked around as well and wondered what I was looking for.

“Hi?!” I said to her. “You’re alive?!”

“Healthy as a horse. Why?”

“I haven’t heard from you. Bad first day?”

“Um, something like that. No, really, it was just longer than I was prepared for.”

“Have you heard from Skandar?”

“We’ve been texting back and forth since this morning.”

Arlin smiled at the memories this morning had given her to ponder about.

“Oh. Sounds…FUN?!”

Arlin rolled her eyes.

“Oh. Kay. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be bathing and Marlen’s playing with her dolls if you need anything.”

“I’m fine. Just tired.” Arlin said.

“Kay. I’ll probably go to Perry’s later. Want to go with?”

“No! But tell him I said, ‘hi.’ ” She smiled.

“Okay, then! Don’t jump out of your seat, now! Geez!”

“GO SHOWER!”

“Fine! Geez!”

I went straight to the bathroom and took a shower. When I was wrapping my towel tight under my arms, I heard Arlin, talking. She was talking to someone, but I didn’t remember hearing the doorbell ring. Funny.

“Oh my gosh! Really? That’s so cool!” Arlin said from her room.

“Yeah. It was pretty cool, but I’ve really missed you. Everyday, I feel kind of empty, like something crucial in my life hasn’t happened. I haven’t seen you in a while!”

“Skandar, it’s been 21 hours. It hasn’t even been a whole day yet!”

Skandar? He’s in England! How could that be?  

I changed quickly into my robe, brushed my hair and ran out of the bathroom.

When I was about to go straight towards Arlin’s room, the doorbell rang. I went to the door, opening it in shock, and secretly, adulation.

“Hi. How may I help you?” If this kid was selling something, I was definitely buying. I examined what was the cutest guy since…and then I instantly thought of Perry. He had blond hair, short, but grown out a couple of inches from his scalp. His eyes were green, he had big, perfectly shaped lips. He was tall, almost as tall as…Perry. A bit younger, I assumed. A bit cute, also…Too young, too young.

“Um, Does Arlin Salazar live here?”

He was Arlin’s friend. But what about Skandar…?

“Um, yeah. She’s here….Do you want me to send her a message?”

“I’m sorry, I thought you said she was here.”

“Yes, she is. She’s talking to her boyfriend right now. He’s in England.”

“England? Hm. I didn’t know she was into that long-distant relationship crap.”

“Well, no. He had to go there for work.”

“What does he do?”

“I’m a little busy, right now, and apparently, so is she. Could you come back later, maybe?”

He glanced at me. I was in my robe. He raised an eyebrow. I knew how busy he thought I was.

“Whoah, whoah! I just took a shower! It’s nothing like that!”

“Wha-…”

“She noticed.” I whispered, shutting the door. I sprinted to Arlin’s room, aggravated by her little friend.

“ARLIN! One of your friend’s who was at the door, and was very good-looking, I must say, was very rude to me! And he kept on asking about you!”

“Oh CRAP!”

“What happened?” Skandar spoke.

“OH MY GOD! SKANDAR! ARLIN, SKOOT OVER!”

“Oh my gosh!” Arlin muttered under her breath. “Darlenys, seriously…com’on. Get out of here!”

“Well excuse me, you’re not the only who made friends when you met him!”

Skandar stared at us while we argued about him. “What? Okay.”

“I’m sorry, Skandar. You’re girlfriend was being a little rude! So, how’s your movie going?”

“It’s okay. She tends to do that!”

“EX-CUSSSE ME?!”

“Oh! I’ll talk to you later, Skandar.” I left the room so that they could hack it out on their own and changed into clothes.

“Arlin, I’m so, so, sooo sorry! I didn’t mean that!…I” He rambled on and on.

“FINALLY! Alone again!”

“So, you’re not mad at me?”

“Of course not! As long as you really didn’t mean that, then we’re good!”

“Of course not!” There was a pause, then Skandar spoke. “So, who was at the door?”

“Crap!” Arlin said, under her breath. “It was some kid from my school. His name is Hayden,” the god from above,  Arlin thought, “Christensen. He has a slight interest in me.” Arlin made air quotes.

“Oh, really??” Skandar said.

“Don’t think too much about it.”

Skandar made a sad face. He had thought about it.

“What is it?” Arlin asked him.

“…If you had to consider him, would you?”

“Who, Hayden?” Probably thinking that she would, Arlin thought of a lie, for Skandar’s sake. In truth, she had known better than to think of Hayden that way, but she just couldn’t help it! He was quite dazzling. It was like he came into her life as a distraction form what she really wanted, Skandar.

“Yes, whatever his name is.” Skandar muttered that last part under his breath.

“Well, no. Not really. And besides, what good would it do? I’ve already got everything I could ever ask for.”

“Well,…good.” Skandar muttered.

“Skandar, I’m hinting a bit of jealousy, here.”

“Well, no. Not a bit.” He said, scratching his head.

“Honestly, I’m not going to let it get anywhere NEAR far.”

Worry-wart.

“Fine. If he as much as tries to even…”

“Jealous!” Arlin sang.

“I’m calm, I’m calm.”

“You okay, there?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Arlin giggled at Skandar’s reaction. It was silly of him to feel this way. He didn’t even know what Hayden looked like! Then she thought about again and skipped the ideas that were practically jumping off the walls of her head.

It got a little quiet. Skandar sat in his chair, laid back and breathing easily. Arlin stared at him. Then, the most crucial of questions popped into her head.

“So, how much longer am I going to have to live without you?”

“A couple of months; three, I believe.”

“Are they trying to kill me??!!” Arlin was fuming.

“You’ll be fine. Just make some friends. I hear those help you through the rough times. Stay busy. I’ll be back in no time.”

“How do you cope so easily?”

“Easily?! I’ve got a lot to do here, and I know that the sooner it’s over, the sooner I’m back in California.”

“That sounds pretty hard to me!” Arlin muttered.

“Look Arlin. I miss you like crazy and I love you just as crazily, but if I think about that in that way, I’ll be stuck missing you for a while!”

“In a crazy, twisted way, that makes sense!”

“Of course it does! You‘ll see! In no time, you‘ll be in my arms and I‘ll be in yours! Just find something to do! Try out for some kind of sport! What about cheerleading? You told me you loved that!”

“Oh, that.” Arlin’s love for cheerleading had been substituted for her love for Skandar Keynes as soon as that first kiss happened on that group gathering ages ago!

“Yeah, that! Just keep busy, like me, although I have no choice! You’ll see how fast time flies.”

Ch.16 (Effort)

Meanwhile PerryLenys…

“I’m here!” I called from the buzzer so that Perry could let me in.

“Okay.” Perry pressed the button, unlocking the door.

When I got up to his door, he opened it and took me by the hand.

“Well, hello.” He said, smiling almost ear to ear.

“Hiya.” I said.

Perry came closer towards me, his lips lingering on my jaw, down to my neck. I gave the door a little push, closing it successfully. Perry started to suck on my neck. I pushed him away a little.

“What?” He actually sounded hurt. Aw!

“What are the girls going to say?” This was for Marlen’s sake. (wink, wink.)

“You have long hair, you know.”

“Shut up!” I nudged him. “Is this what I came here for?”

“Is this what you wanted to come here for?” He stroked my cheek, all the way down to my neck.

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously!…No, not that I mind…”

Perry’s lips crushed against mine. I couldn’t fight against him this time. Feeling weak, I wrapped my arms around him. He grabbed my hands gently and locked them around his neck. Never detaching his lips from mine, he picked me up and I wrapped my legs around him.

We were headed to his room. I managed to gulp. His lips left mine, only going behind and under my ear. I bit my lip and rolled my eyes to the back of my eye sockets. My head went back, and all of a sudden, when I thought that I would hit it with the wall, it was against something soft, and now Perry seemed shorter than everything else.

Perry sucked on my jaw, going to my neck again. I considered my long, black hair again and sighed. (Cover up wasn’t going to do anything, so I sighed about my alternative.)

My hands were like slick around his neck. I fumbled for a place to set them, just letting them slide down his neck, onto his chest. He stopped kissing me and looked at me, sighing.

“Do you want to go out? Because we can…”

I sat up, rolling my eyes, and kissed him on the neck.

“Guess that’s a ‘No’.” Perry stated obviously.

“Really, now? Is it?” I said sarcastically.

Month one is behind us, especially for Arlin and Skandar.

In a month: friends have been made, relationships have boomed, and everything’s pretty sane.

Arlin took to Skandar’s advice and has been making new friends here and there. She’s been in and out of the house with Jessica, from Spanish and Math. Perry and I are pretty satisfied with the outcomes of that advice. It really killed me to see Arlin that upset about Skandar leaving to England. Perry was upset that I was upset, but nevertheless, he knew how much I cared about my roomies. I used to have to leave the house because Arlin was so depressed, but it really shows that Skandar cares. He still, to this day, I.M.s with Arlin, giving her advice and encouraging her that they’ll be together soon enough. It’s absolutely adorable!

At school…

Homeroom, Arlin went to her locker, Jessica tagging along, and discussed about school-related activities.

“So, how’s Skandar?” Jessica asked, not really caring but wanting to make conversation.

Arlin rolled her eyes, knowing this. “He’s fine. I’ve got two more months until we are finally together! I miss him so much!”

“Wow! You are so lucky!”

“Really? How?” Arlin asked sarcastically.

“Well, you’ve got a great boyfriend and he’s just as in love with you as you are with him!”

“Jess, I’m just lucky, but, I mean, you have half the guys at school waiting on you to say, ‘yes’ to them! Now, if that’s not really, truly lucky, then I don’t what is!”

“Well, yeah! But I don’t’ have the guy waiting for me!”

“Okay, who is ‘the guy’?” Arlin made air quotes around Jessica’s exact phrase.

“Hayden, from Spanish, or math.”

Arlin closed her locker with a little more force than necessary. She sprinted back to homeroom, just minutes before the bell rang. Jessica like Hayden?? Of course! She just had to! It was perfect! Now, she would have no distractions, other than the obvious onsets.

“So, have you tried to ask him to hang out or something?” Arlin asked Jessica.

“Are you crazy??!!” Jessica threw her hands up.

“Apparently.” Arlin mumbled sarcastically. “What’s wrong with that, Jess?”

“Well, everything! It will ruin my vision.”

“Your…vision? Of what?”

“Well, being the hopeless romantic that I am…,” Arlin rolled her eyes at Jessica’s words, “I’d want him to ask me out.”

“So get his attention somehow,…talk to him, you could start off as friends and go from there, hopefully.”

“So get his attention somehow,…talk to him, you could start off as friends and go from there, hopefully.”

“Hmm…” Jessica said stopping her class, “I’ll text you so ideas. You have study hall today.”

“I do?”

“I checked for you.”

“Gee, thanks.” Arlin went to her class.

So Hayden liked to make people like Jessica sit around and worry about him? Typical teenage heart throb. Arlin would have to be blinded by some kind of voodu curse to ever feel that way about him while her and Skandar existed together.

A Couple Of Days Later…

There’s a school trip, a type of recreational trip to the beach. Everyone’s invited! Plus the additional invites, there are some chaperones needed. Other than that, it’s a fun, co-ed trip where almost anything can happen.

“Finally, math!” Arlin sighed, sitting down.

“I know, right?” Hayden Christensen said, sitting down in the seat in front of her.

“Oh, boy. Hi, Hayden.” Arlin grumbled.

“Hey, no Christensen today?” He noted.

“Sorry. I’m having an ‘off’ day today.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“It’s Friday! I’m just…tired.”

“More like exhausted! Do you sleep at night or are you too busy talking to your English boyfriend online?”

Arlin stopped breathing altogether for a second. “What did you say?”

“Oh, yeah. I went to your house one night, ages ago; I don’t think you’d remember.”

Arlin had flashbacks for a couple of minutes.

“Oh, yeah. I remember.”

“So,…Was that, what, an excuse not to talk to me?”

“No, not really. I mean, I wasn’t lying. I really was talking to my boyfriend…”

“Your boyfriend, from England?”

“AIM?”

“AIM? Really? Why are you taking so much effort into lying to a guy who really likes you?”

“Hayden…”

“Just, save it, or better yet, tell your ‘boyfriend’ about it.”

Arlin couldn’t wait for math class to be over, now.

She felt really sympathetic towards Hayden Christensen. He really was just trying. If only he could try with Jessica. She was crazy about Hayden! Arlin thought of the best idea she’s ever had in a long time! It was bound to work!

Arlin looked at Jessica, who was obviously trying NOT to stare at Hayden, the god from above, Christensen. She decided to text her, so as to not make it obvious that she was staring.

Arlin’s text read: “Come to my house after school. TRUST ME, THIS WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!”

Jessica got the text in seconds and stared at Arlin with huge eyes. Jessica texted her, accepting her invitation.

Ch.17 (Planning)

Afterschool…

“So, what was all that about?” Jessica asked curiously.

“I’ll tell you when we get to my place.” Arlin replied.

“Okay…You’re really scaring me, here, Arlin!”

Arlin simply smiled.

When they got to Arlin’s apartment, they went straight to her room and closed the door behind them.

“SPILL!” Jessica said, dropping her stuff on the floor and sitting on Arlin’s bed, next to her.

“Hayden knows about Skandar!”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It really shocked me, because he made me feel all bad and stuff and then he was like, ‘Are you lying to me because…’ “ Arlin didn’t continue.

“Because?…”

“Jess, don’t get mad, but…he likes me.”

“But you love Skandar, right?!”

“Er, right. Still, I felt bad.”

“Yeah.”

“But that’s why I instantly thought of hooking him up with someone who likes him more than he thinks he likes me!”

“Who?”

“Jess, seriously now!”

“Oh, right.”

“Anyway, so I pretty much came up with the perfect plan.”

“And this plan is…?”

“I’m getting there! Anyway, so, you and I go to the school bonfire trip at the beach, and I try to get Hayden to relax and make him think that I’m letting him get closer to me, when I’m actually hooking him up with my friend.” Arlin shoved Jessica lightly and winked at her.

“Oh! I like!” Jessica laughed.

“Yeah! This has got to work!”

Arlin and Jessica spent the weekend plotting and scheming to be ready for the big day. With all of the careful planning, this was bound to work.

On Monday…

There are two weeks left until the trip to the beach and two weeks of Arlin trying to convince Hayden that she’s given him a chance. So much work had to be done without over-doing it or not doing enough. Jessica was telling Arlin everything about Hayden that she could so that Arlin could talk to him without upsetting him-AGAIN.

“Oh god, are you sure?” Arlin asked Jessica if she was okay with this. It was getting a little weird to stalk a person who you were trying to seduce and then give way to a friend.

“Arlin! Don’t worry! I’ll be fine! I mean, as long as you guys don’t, like, kiss or start holding hands-I’ve wanted to do that for way too long! It’s almost embarrassing!” She stated matter-of-factly.

“Er, of course not.” Arlin felt a little vision popping into her head the minute Jess had mentioned kissing or holding hands with Hayden, the god from above, Christensen. She also saw Skandar, pulling Hayden away from her and punching him in the mouth. Yikes!

That night…

Arlin invited Jessica to sleep over, more to plan than do mani-pedies, but still having fun. Time was running out and Arlin still wasn’t sure how to flirt with him-Not that she didn’t know how-without falling for him. She knew what her priorities were but lately, all the talk about Hayden was dangerous for her. She was cautious of Skandar too. She loved Skandar almost irrationally, and he loved her that way too. It would be pure torture if she would ever act so stupidly as to falling into temptation with Hayden; and she’s not much of a masochist.

Arlin was quiet throughout most of the evening, keeping mostly everything to herself. Jessica was looking at a couple of magazines, wondering what to do with her hair for approximately two weeks from now. Arlin stared at her computer screen, just scrolling up and down, listening to music. Suddenly, a window popped up. It was a video chat from ‘SkantheMan’. Arlin smiled and accepted.

“Hey!” Skandar greeted her.

“Long time no see! Hi!” Arlin smiled.

“Oh, definitely. I’ve been dying over here-literally! In the last scene, someone knocked me out in a battle!”

Arlin laughed. Jessica slide out of the room, hoping to find a better place to concentrate on cute hairstyles. She went to the bathroom.

“So, how’s school?” Skandar asked.

Arlin hushed. “School’s…kind of there!”

“ ‘Kind of there’? How?”

“Well, there’s this school recreational trip to the beach, so school’s not so completely horrid.”

“Horrid? Arlin, it can’t be that bad!”

“Well, it sort of is! I mean, I’ve missed you so much…”

“Haven’t you been distracting yourself like I told you?”

“Oh yeah, my friend Jessica is sleeping over tonight. We’re planning for the trip. I can’t wait! I love the beach!”

“When is it?”

“In two weeks!”

“Wow! That was close!”

“What?”

“Um, I have great news!”

“I’m coming back a week after your trip!!”

Arlin screamed. “REALLY?!”

“Yeah!”

“In that case, I REALLY CAN’T WAIT FOR THAT TRIP!”

“So, who’s going on this trip?”

“I don’t know…the whole school, I think. Why?”

“Just wondering who will be there.”

“Skandar, are you acting jealous again?”

“No, I’m not acting. I’m off the clock at the moment.”

Arlin laughed. “You are hilarious!”

“Am I?” He said in a prosaic voice.

“Yeah.”

“And why I am so hilarious?”

“Because you’re being really jealous over something so silly! Tell me exactly what are you worried about?”

“That kid that likes you.”

“Hayden? Oh, you definitely don’t have anything to worry about there!”

“Really?!” He said in the same, uninterested voice.

“Yeah, because my friend Jessica and I are planning a little hook-up with her and Hayden.”

“Well, in that case, I am a little calmed down.”

“Good.”

“Skandar?” Arlin asked.

“Yes?”

“Do you know if you could get done two Fridays from now?”

“Um, I’m not sure. Why?”

“Well, I couldn’t possibly think of anyone that I could hang out with at the beach than with you.”

“I’ll try to figure out when I’m not needed anymore.” Skandar smiled.

Ch.18 (Filling Up The Stash)

Suddenly, Jessica popped in the room.

“Arlin? Darlenys is going out to the supermarket. Do you wanna go?”

She looked back at Skandar, who was yawning. She smiled at him and typed, “Go to sleep. I’m going out. Love you.”

He smiled at her. He typed, “Is it obvious? lol. Bye. I love you more!”

Arlin smiled and exited out and put her computer on standby.

“Sure. Let’s go!” Arlin stood up.

“Talking to Skandar again??” Jessica sang her question.

Arlin blushed. She nodded.

At the Supermarket…

“I’m just going to get what I need and leave!” I yelled after them as they went straight to the magazine section of the store.

“It’s cool. We don’t need too much time to skim through some magazines.” Arlin said, following Jessica.

“I’ll call you, then.” I said, waving my hand.

“GET ME SOME PICKLES!!!” Arlin yelled.

I stopped in my tracks pausing to laugh.

Meanwhile, Jessica and Arlin were looking at magazines, skimming through pages, when suddenly…

“OHMYGOSH!” Arlin practically shouted, making some customers stop and star.

“What?! What is it? Why are you yelling?!” Jessica asked her, trying to calm her down, but only hyping up her mood.

“Skandar’s movie is going to have a premiere party…WITH A SPECIAL SCREENING IN ENGLAND??!!!”

“Really?” Jessica would never be as enthusiastic as Arlin was about England, or Skandar Keynes.

“YEAH! I have to buy this!!”

As Arlin and Jessica were looking through the magazines, Hayden Christensen was doing a little shopping of his own.

“Oh! Body spray!” (I don’t know; What gets guys excited about shopping…?) Hayden grabbed the body spray in his hand. (Axe, obviously. He’d been watching way too many commercials!)

Hayden was passing the magazine aisle, going back an aisle before it when he noticed his two classmates, Arlin and Jessica.

Arlin was looking at a magazine and Jessica was peering out from hers to look at Arlin’s from time to time.

“Skandar Keynes-of course.” Hayden muttered to himself. Maybe she was just an obsessed fan-sadly, gone too far-and she was “keeping the dream alive.” Hayden shook his head from side to side. He went back into his aisle and waited for them to leave.

Hayden grabbed the magazine that Arlin had picked up and flipped violently through it, ripping out the pages that would give him the dirt that he had been looking for.

At the apartment…

“Oh my gosh, finally!” I said as I ripped open a box of Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. “I needed this.”

Meanwhile, as I’m going insane with all of these different projects and plans, Perry is just about to get off work. Till then, I’ve got some work ahead of me.

15 Minutes Later…

“Hello?” I said, not even looking at the caller I.d.

“Hey, I’ll be there in like, two seconds.”

“Why t-…” The doorbell discontinued my question. I smiled and got up to answer the door.

Outside the threshold stood Perry; deep blue eyes that were on my face as soon as I opened the door. Lips, the lower one thicker than the upper one, parting at the smirk he was now giving me. He walked through the door, standing in front of me.

“Hi.” I said, standing in front of him. My hair was pretty much everywhere! The makeup that I had  worn was running away from the rims of my eye sockets. I had a t-shirt as long as my knees on, and underneath that were some jersey shorts to create the long t-shirt-effect.

Perry raised an eyebrow at my look, smirking at me still.

“Hi,” He wrapped his arms around my waist, making my over-sized shirt come into my sides in the middle. “Are you working hard tonight?”

“Oh, am I! I had to go buy some thinking food tonight! I ran out! It was pretty scary!” I joked.

“Hm…did it work? “A little.”

“Have you tried this.” He grabbed my chin and pressed his lips to mine for a couple of seconds. He looked at me then.

“No, I hadn’t thought of that one.” I smiled, wrapping my arms around his neck, and grabbed a fistful of his midnight-dark hair and rose from the ground on my tip-toes to better reach him. My breathing sped and, a few seconds into the passion, I wasn’t the only one who was having trouble breathing!

Perry pulled me to his chest and then, without noticing, I wasn’t on the ground anymore. He was walking towards my room.

“Wait, wait. We can’t go in there!” I said against his lips.

“Why not?” He looked at me.

“Arlin and her friend are in there.”

“Oh, right.” He looked around the room, pausing to look behind me. “Hmmm…”

“What?” I asked.

“Would you look at that! No one’s sitting on the couch!” He said, sarcastically.

I laughed at his sarcasm. He smiled at me, looking up at me, since I was wrapped around his body; my legs were wrapped around his torso like an octopus, as were my arms around his neck; fingers played with his locks of darkness. Perry charged for my couch, slipping and falling on his back, onto the carpet luckily, with me now sitting on the perfect plains of his stomach.

“Uhf!” He said.

I covered my mouth. “Are you okay?!”

He looked at me and said, “That’s gonna hurt in the morning.”

Ch. 19 (I don‘t wanna be,…Without U.)

Meanwhile, Arlin and Jessica…

These girls have been planning and there are officially only thirteen days until said trip. Arlin’s been eating, breathing Hayden information and she honestly thinks that she’s got it pretty much covered. There’s not much left to learn, thanks to Jessica.

“Okay, so, I think I’m ready.” Arlin said.

“I hope so, because you’ve got a week to get Hayden to start talking to you again!” Jessica told her.

There was a knock on my bedroom door, where Arlin and Jessica were at.

“Come in!” They laughed at their little screen-playing game where Jessica was pretending to be Hayden.

“Hey, guys! Did ya miss me?” Hayden came in and dropped his stuff! (Speak of the hearthrob!)

“Holy snot!” Arlin screamed.

“Hayden!” Jessica screamed.

“What are YOU doing here?!” The girls got up and fidgeted with their hair.

“Visiting. Well, you know, I was around the neighborhood.”

“Uh-huh…” Arlin said, dubiously.

Hayden gave Arlin a face, “Anyway,…I thought I’d, um, come by…”

“Sure. Hayden, what are you REALLY here for?” Arlin asked him.

“Okay! You caught me!”

Arlin and Jessica looked at each other. Jessica nudged Arlin and gave her one of the looks that they’d been talking about.

“Listen, Hayden,” She fidgeted with her fingers, “I’m sorry about Friday in math.” Arlin said.

“What?” Hayden looked dumbfounded.

“When I was talking to you, and I was all irritated and stuff, it was just a long day.”

“Oh, that stuff! Yeah, um. Don’t worry about that! I’m a little too excited on Fridays! It’s kind of weird.” Hayden took advantage of Arlin’s mood by trying to add in talk about the bonfire trip.

“So,…you girls going to the bonfire trip?” He tested his question in his mind to see if it was safe, first.

“Actually,” Arlin pointed at him, inching closer while giving Jess a few glances, “I was thinking that we should all go together! I mean, we’re all good friends here and we’re pretty capable of having a good time. Well, the school’s taking us, of course, by ‘together’ I mean we should, you know, hang out there.”

Arlin tried to sound tongue-tied only to make him think that he made her nervous in a way that she couldn’t make coherent sentences around him.

It worked. Hayden’s ego was starting to look enormous already when he said, “I knew my irresistible charm wasn’t just a rumor.”

Arlin rolled her eyes. “Don’t push it, Christensen.”

“No, ma’am.” He replied. He got up and stretched. “Can I have some juice?”

(Random-much?)

Arlin sighed and said, “Sure. Just go help yourself.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t’ spill anything.”

“I’ll try not to.” Hayden winked. Jessica’s heart fluttered, even though he was obviously winking at Arlin.

Meanwhile, Perry and I…

“You okay?” I asked Perry, as I got off of him so that he could get up.

“I’m fine.” He smiled. I giggled, gasping at the same time that my eyes spotted Hayden, Arlin’s annoyingly-good-looking friend, walk out of my room!

“What?!” Perry tried to look in my direction.

“What are YOU doing here?!” I asked Hayden.

“It’s nice to see you, too, honey!” He went to the refrigerator and got some juice and grabbed a cup to pour it in.

“Who’s that?” Perry asked, pointing while looking really ticked off.

“Oh, that’s Hayden. He’s Arlin’s friend.”

“And so if he’s Arlin’s friend, why did he just come out of YOUR room??”

“Why should I know?”

“Because he obviously came out of your room.”

“What are you trying to say, here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that, ‘if he’s a guest, he knows his way a little too well around your apartment.’ ”

“So? It’s not that hard to find your way around this place!”

I stood up a little more and put my hands on my hips, bringing the sides of my shirt into my body.

“So, Hayden…?” Perry called over to him. Hayden stopped drinking his juice. “How often do you come here?”

“Here? Umm, I’ve only been here twice, but this time, I got to come inside and everything! I mean, I even got to go inside the room!” He smiled stupidly.

I covered my face in frustration, annoyance, and anger.

“Thanks for the info!” Perry said to him.

“Sure, thing!” Hayden took a sip of his juice and went back to the room, right when Jessica came out and asked if he was doing okay.

“Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Just talking to…uh…?”

“Perry.” Perry said between his teeth.

“Oh, well, just…just making sure, you know.” Jessica walked past Hayden close enough that she somehow spilled the juice on his shirt.

“Oh my gosh!!” Jessica moved her hands frantically, trying to find a place to set them on Hayden’s shirt. “I’m sooooo sorry!”

“It’s okay! Good thing I have another shirt around here somewhere.”

Perry looked at me dubiously, eyeing the size of my shirt. (oh crap!) I knew EXACTLY what he was thinking!

He started to get up and look around for anything he had brought with him. I grabbed onto his arm and stalked after him. He got to the door and stopped.

“I’m leaving.”

“Why? I didn’t even do anything?”

“You don’t have to keep playing along with your little game! I get it! You don’t want me anymore!”

“Whoah! What?! What are you…? Oh my gosh! Perry, that’s absurd! Hayden, right? That kid who just came out of my room, was in there because of the girls!”

“ ‘I’ve got another shirt around here somewhere?’ ” He quoted Hayden while pulling a piece between his thumb and index finger.

“Oh my god! Ew! Perry…he’s like seventeen! And second of all, this is MY shirt!”

“Why would you buy an oversized shirt?”

“I wanted one???”

“You’re lying.”

“What?”

“You’re lying.”

“Really? Are you kidding me?!” I yelled.

Jessica and Hayden looked at Perry and me. I opened my door and we went out to the hall to talk.

“So,” I shut the door, “Do I have to like keep all of my receipts now? And since when are you concerned with the sizes of my clothes?!”

“That’s not even the point! The point is that…” He stopped, took a breath, then looked away from me.

“What?” I grabbed his chin with my thumb and index finger. “What’s the point here?”

“…I’ll never be your first anymore.” He sounded a little ashamed to use such words. It shocked me a little. I’d never heard anyone other than girls say that kind of stuff. He looked at me.

“What??” I felt really annoyed and at the same time, I wanted to start laughing and I had no idea why, but I knew that now wasn’t a good time.

“So,…what are you trying to say exactly?” I asked him, fighting the small, pools of saltwater tears to flow from my eyes.

“I don’t know if I’m trying to say anything.”

“I wish you were trying to say that you believe me.” I murmured, tears already falling down. I caught my breath.

“I love-…” I started to say.

“Don’t say that anymore.”

“Wha-…”

“Look,…I’m,…going to go home,” I shook my head, because I couldn’t find my voice. The words he was going to say hadn’t come out yet, but, honestly, that’s why I was shaking my head. Because I didn’t want it to be true. If he said that he was going to break up with me, then I’d be back into reality and all of the times I’ve had with Perry would all just be dreams; lost, but never forgotten. It’s like I’d just been asleep this whole time and now, slowly, it would all come falling down on me and wake me up. I never wanted to open my eyes up to this. Ever.

Perry left. He didn’t say anything, which gave me hope (but only a smidge.). I walked away slowly, opening my door.

Hayden and Jessica stared at me, then said, “Arlin, we’re leaving.” to Arlin, in my room. I smiled a little at them.

Hayden came up to me and whispered, “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” I smiled, whispering back.

“Hey!” He complained.

“Com’on!” Jessica pulled him. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded once. She closed the door. Arlin came out of my room. She looked at me.

“You’re a mess.” She said.

I made a face and closed the door to my room once I was inside. I laid down on my bed and pulled  the covers over my head.

Ch.20 (The Not-So-Third Wheel.)

Skipping around to Wednesday morning…

There are officially eleven days until the famous Bonfire Trip at Arlin and Jessica’s school. The ingenious plan seems to be working since Jessica and Hayden have been talking more than Jessica could have dreamed! Arlin’s been feeling like a third wheel from this, but honestly, she could have cared less! Jessica was finally going to be as happy as she was with Skandar, and not to mention, Skandar would finally stop being jealous of Hayden! Hayden, the god from above, was only trying to be a good friend now, as he realized that him and Jess were getting along.

It was lunchtime, finally! Although it would be a quiet lunch period today, what with Jessica having an appointment, today of all the days! Arlin took her seat near the window, longing for the day to be over and stood up , money clenched in her right hand. She took her place in line and stood there patiently, going with the flow of student-body traffic.

There were two girls talking in front of her. Arlin wasn’t trying to listen, but they were talking a little too loud to be standing one in front of the other.

“So, you’ve seen them too?!”

“Yeah! They look so cute together!!”

“Really? Ugh! I think Hayden would look adorable with me!”

“Oh God! Get over it! It seems Christensen’s finally settling down!”

“Yeah, okay! Like you weren’t going to say the same thing!”  The other girl bit her lips.

“I knew it!” The girl kept talking. “You just can’t stare at…at a wonderful creation of GOD like him and NOT fantasize!”

Arlin seemed like she would burst into laughter. She motioned to the two other girls to move forward.

“What’s so funny?” The girl who kept talking said. Her beach blond hair moved with the motion of her walking.

“Yeah?” the girl who bit her lips said. She had green braces and green eyes to match. Her curly-red hair also seemed to fit with the bridge of red-brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. Both very modelesque. Both wearing Hollister, naturally.

“I don’t think you should refer to him as a ‘GOD’. He’s just a kid.”

The two girls made faces at Arlin.

Arlin raised her hand, palms up. “Okay, okay. An exceptionally good-looking guy. But personally, I don’t fantasize about him.”

“Are you blind?” Blondie said, putting her hands on her hips. The curly-haired girl laughed.

“No.” Arlin replied.

“Have you seen him?” She took a breath. “In PERSON?”

“Yeah. All the time. He’s my best friend’s friend. And, I guess he’s my friend, too.”

Arlin got her food, paid for it, and left.

The two girls followed after her. They gasped at the same time that Arlin stopped. Christensen was sitting at a table, staring at Arlin’s things on the table. He looked up, a smile on his glorious face, and greeted Arlin.

The girls gasped even more when they saw Christensen motioning to her to sit down.

“This isn’t your lunch period.” Arlin accused him.

“Oh well. No one’s going to miss me in study hall.” He replied.

“Where’s Jess?” He asked. Arlin’s smile went a little smug, but no for the actual reason at hand: Jessica’s absence.

“She’s at an appointment.”

“Hey, look, I’m sorry if you’ve been feeling…eh, left out. Jess and I have been…”

“Bonding??” Arlin smiled widely. (Teehee.)

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s GOOD!”

“It is.”

“But?” Arlin prompted.

“But?” Hayden looked puzzled.

“I don’t know. I felt a ‘but’ coming along.”

Hayden laughed. “Well, I don’t know about ‘buts’, but…”

“See?!”

He laughed again. “I guess I’m trying to say that it’s unfair that I’ve been hanging out with one of my best friends more than the other.”

“Best friend?” Arlin murmured between her teeth. Wow!

“Yeah! Of course! I mean, were you expecting something more?” Hayden questioned her with a pleading voice.

Arlin sighed, took a bite out of her apple and said, ‘no.’ Hayden sighed too, looked around and asked, “What’s for lunch?”

Arlin made a face at his nonchalance, intentionally, and said, “Pizza, chicken fingers and turkey and gravy sandwich; at least those are the main dishes. I wouldn’t suggest anything else, so it doesn’t matter.” She smiled a little. Hayden smiled at her and went up to get his food.

When he came back, he was more than excited to eat with Arlin, since he noticed for a fact that Jessica wasn’t here and Arlin was somewhat vulnerable, or so he thought.

“Look, Arlin! They had juice!” Hayden showed her the small carton of apple juice that he had picked up in his hand.

“Oh! Three drops of squished fruit in a carton! Fun!” Her sarcasm made him laugh, which was just what she had been hoping for. It was a bit weird for her to admit, but sh e liked it when she could make him laugh. It pleased her and, honestly, she was starting to think that those girls were right; Arlin suddenly saw herself in a very unfamiliar, barren place, holding hands with Christensen and getting to hear the sound of his laughter very close to her. This plan was working. Arlin was going to get closer to him than she ever really wanted. This was going to be extremely dangerous.

Arlin and Hayden both walked into their math class, the last class of the day. The class cheered as soon as they saw a substitute walk in. It was going to be an easy class period, and it was only Wednesday.

“Listen up, guys and girls, your teacher, Mr. Quin is on an intensive teaching trip and won’t be back until Monday, so I’ll be fitting in. Now, this is the part where you all cheer, right? Okay…”

The class cheered on cue.

“So, all I ask is that you keep it down. You have extra credit work that he left you guys. If you need any help, I’m an English major, so we’ll see what we can do. My name’s Mr. Lucas, so just try NOT to need me, if you know what I mean…”

The class laughed. The few girls that were already huddled into a group in the corner were examining Mr. Lucas. He had on pale-black pants, a decent shirt, converses, and he wore square, small glasses. His hair was long and layered on top of itself, not going past his ears in length. He had a bit of a faint shadow, but nothing unprofessional.

The girls in the back, apart from Arlin, were laughing and giggling about Mr. Lucas’s appearance.

Arlin was barely paying attention.

She definitely noticed Mr. Lucas’s appearance, but it wasn’t the main center of her attention; Hayden was.

“Hey!” Hayden greeted her.

“Hi.” Arlin looked up from her book.

“so, I…I was thinking…”

Arlin looked up from her book again, putting her bookmark inside.

“Yeah?” She asked.

“What?” He interrogated.

“You were going to say something?” Arlin asked him.

“Oh,…um, I forgot.” He stalled nervously.

“O…kay?” Arlin went back to her book.

Class was almost over.

Five minutes left…

“Hey, Arlin?” Hayden asked.

“Hmm?” She barely looked up from her book. Hayden closed her book, and she quickly slipped the bookmark before it closed.

“Are you doing anything weekend?”

“Don’t people usually ask that kind of stuff on Friday?”

“Answer my question.” Hayden said.

“I don’t know. Probably nothing. I only really do stuff with Jessica.”

“Would you be okay with watching a movie with me? I mean, I’ve tried asking my other friends but they’ve all got plans.”

“Ummm…,” Arlin thought of the possibilities and shook her head.

“Geez, you just had to say, ‘no’!”

“What? No! Not, ‘no, I don’t want to go!’, Uhhh…I meant, ‘yes, I’ll go.’!”

“You shake your head when you’re saying yes?”

“No.”

“Okay, so, is that a ‘yes’,” He nodded, “or a ‘No’,” He shook his head.

Arlin gave him ‘the look’. “Yes.”

“Cool.”

Ch.21 (Movies with Christensen)

Arlin and Hayden have been spending time together; to anyone, they should just get a room; (to Hayden too.) Obviously, Arlin and Skandar, (who really shouldn’t know about this, for the intention of KEEPING Hayden alive), are still irrevocably in love and they are going to be with each other soon enough. Jessica is M.I.A. (Missing In Action), so Hayden can’t really focus on Jessica the way that he was supposed to. It was obvious that his crush for Arlin was only going to get stronger. And as for Arlin, her slight attraction for Hayden was going to grow, whether she likes it or not.

***-Hayden P.O.V.

At home…

“Hayden, you lucky guy! You’re finally going to get to go on a date with Arlin!” I talked to myself. “Yeah, I know, ‘What a weirdo’ Oh crap! She’s just thinking that I’m ‘just a friend’ when I want to be so much more!, “I had just remembered, right when I had mentioned her name.

I walked over to the mirror in my bathroom and gave myself a little confidence boost/ “pep talk.”

“Okay, Hayden! You can do this! You the man! YOU THE MAN! She’s just a girl-a gorgeous, fine, extremely hot girl…Yep, this isn’t working.” I gave up with the self-mirrored talk and just settled for some food to calm myself down.

Why couldn’t girls be like food? They’re so hard to figure out! Food is as obvious as anything else! But, GIRLS!! Sure, they’re beautiful, but they are sometimes a pain in the neck! Food is just, well, pretty obvious, especially if you’ve made it yourself! A homemade sandwich has you ingredients that you decided to put in yourself. IT doesn’t make itself and start packing itself with all of these different concoctions! Unless you make someone else make it for you! It really annoys me when there’s something in my sandwich that I clearly didn’t remember ordering!

That’s pretty much like girls! You don’t always get what you’ve ordered. I guess I could relax by saying that the night is young and I think I could get her to like me in time for the beach trip!

Wow! I never thought that I’d live to “think” the day that I liked school!

***-End of Hayden’s P.O.V*

Honestly, Arlin and Hayden were getting closer by the second, and watching a scary movie had nothing to do with “getting closer.” Arlin had already adjusted to Hayden. After the movies, Hayden walked her home.

They were walking pretty far apart from each other. Arlin was staring at her intertwined fingers. Hayden stared at her in complete silence. Arlin looked nervously at her fingers still, then getting annoyed by the ideas running through her head. She walked a little faster, with her newly-clenched fists at her sides. Hayden tried to catch up.

“Hey! Why are you walking so fast?!” He yelled.

“I always walk like this!” She yelled back, answering his question.

“Uh-huh. Don’t tell me you’re scared of the dark!”

“What? Why do you say that?”

“Because I saw you in the movies! I was sitting right next to you!”

“Oh, REALLY?! So, you think that I’m scared of the dark-BECAUSE OF A MOVIE?! Please! It wasn’t even that scary! I’ve seen worse!”

“Oh,Re…?!” Hayden started, but Arlin cut him off.

“AND, it’s not even dark outside!”

They got to the apartment building and Hayden stopped in front of Arlin and thanked her for coming with him. Hayden hugged Arlin and she melted in his arms, hating the effect that he had on her.

“Bye!” Hayden said, now looking at her; his eyes were obviously twinkling.

“See ya, Christensen!”

He looked at her. She smiled and said, “Bye, Hayden!”

He smiled back.

When Arlin got inside and up to her room, she felt a text that was vibrating through her pants. She looked at it. It was from Hayden.

“You were too scared.”

She smiled, rolled her eyes and got ready for bed.

Ch.22 (You’re Irresistible)

School was getting  weirder and weirder each day! Jessica hasn’t shown up in a while, only because she’s going through way too much for a silly little trip to the beach. Hayden was the one who was getting weird! He was being extremely nice, and sometimes bashful; and he was smiling a lot-practically every time that he saw her.

On Friday, Hayden wasn’t being his usual, cocky self. He was being pretty funny, and as much as Arlin didn’t want to admit, irresistible.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty much the same as usual, only Hayden was I.m.ing Arlin instead of Skandar. Skandar was wrapping up the few scenes and any other Narnia-related activity that he was involved in; after that, he’d go to his house (in England) and collapse on his bed. These days, he barely made it to the couch! Arlin had been informed by his late-night texts; and she was occupied with her newest bff, Hayden, who in truth, wanted to be known as her ‘bf’. Arlin couldn’t say that she hadn’t considered it before, because lately, she’s been thinking about a little more than math in her class with Hayden.

That’s when Sunday night allowed her to be able to see him more often than she was unfortunately hoping she would. Hayden had I.m.ed her.

“Oh my god!” Arlin rolled her eyes, smiling a small but slightly happy smile.

She typed, “Hayden?”

“At your service;D” he typed.

“Yeah, okay.” She replied.

Hayden typed a pretty long message. It read, “So, how do you think you’ll do on that math quiz on Thurs.? I think I’m going to ace it! It’s soooo easy!”

Arlin found a reason to panic. “Math quiz. Ohgod! Yeah, you’ll be acing what I’m definitely going to be failing!”

“I could teach you how to do what we’re doing right now.” He replied.

“Now? How?”

“Not on here! At school, Dr. Seuss!”

“hahaha.”

“I’m sorry, but seriously, I could tutor you. It’s not that hard! You’ll see!”

“Oh, yes we will see!”

“Okay, so, would this be better at school or at home? See, because we have to pay attenton at school, and maybe he’ll be teaching the others how to do those problems, and then, maybe you won’t need me.”

Arlin gawked at her screen. What was she going to say to that?!

“Arlin, I would really recommend that you let me teach it to you. Besides, you can trust me more than our own math teacher.” He said.

“Well, I guess.” She replied.

“Good.” He hesitated, then started typing again, “So, starting Monday then?”

Arlin’s mouth had opened involuntarily.

“Um, sure, I guess. Where should I meet you?”

“Um, I’m not sure. Where are you most comfortable?”

“In my room.”

“Then, we’ll meet there! Got to go! Take your math book home on Monday! I could go right after school if that’s okay.”

“Uh, uh…sure?”

“Hayden responded by laughing virtually.

“G2G! Bye!”

“Bye.”

Monday and Tuesday weren’t anything ordinary. Hayden was actually keeping his promise and tutoring Arlin It seemed like he had no more affection towards her as much as he used to. But, unfortunately for Arlin, she’d fallen for him a little too late.

As for me, Perry and I were a bit of a mess right now. If I could really blame anyone, it’d definitely be Hayden, but he didn’t really DO anything; Perry just hasn’t realized that the whole thing is just a misunderstanding.

On Tuesday morning, before work, I was about to head out the door, when I realized that I hadn’t had some breakfast. I hated to admit it, but I really needed to go to Perry’s café. I was in the mood for a croissant and a French vanilla cappuccino in a mug or something; wouldn’t be too bad. To-go. Not because I was mad at him; because I was completely tormented and lost without him. It was honestly because I was going to be late; and I just wanted to see his face in person. Just one more time. It’s been killing me to refer to photographs. The only reason that I hadn’t done this before was because I was afraid that he wouldn’t even look at me. I don’t think he would do that. Would he? I walked over there to see.

There he was, beautiful as ever. He had to at least take my order.

I walked up to the register, since I was going to leave with my food. I took a deep breath and stepped forward, looking through my bag, as if I needed to distract myself already. Staring at Perry was always very distracting. I was at the register, looking to see if I still wanted a croissant.

Just as I’d hoped, he was at the register. I tried not to look at him from the corner of my eye. He didn’t look like he was mad at me.

“Can I come over tonight?” I asked him, pleading deep in my voice. I gave him my money. He handed me my food. He was smiling, but I didn’t know if it was out of habit.

“Sure.”

I stopped and looked up at him in astonishment.

“Look, I’m sorry that I overreacted on you like that on Friday. I’ve honestly missed you like crazy,” Perry looked me in the eyes and whipped his hair out of the way, letting me rediscover those deep-blue small pools of perfection. His eyes twinkled in the light.

“That’s funny. I thought that you would hate me for the whole misunderstanding! I was actually really scared to come over here because I wouldn’t think that you’d talk to me.”

“What?” He started to give me back my change my change. His fingers lingered on my skin as he gave me the folded receipt.

“I was kind of hoping that you’d come.” He smiled.

I opened the receipt. Aside from the $7.39 that I owed him for the food and my change being a total of $0.61, it read: “See you at 7:00p.m.?”

Perry was attending a customer, but he was looking at me with a sly grin across his face. I loved the fact that he wasn’t mad at me anymore. (Not that I wanted him to be mad at me in the first place, but why the sudden mood swing?)

I looked at him and nodded my head.

Tuesday night…

Ch. 23(“I can fix that.”)

***

It was 6:45 pm. I was showered, just in a cami and some underwear, looking for something decent to  wear. (Honestly, all I had to do was change into something more than what I was already wearing, but I just couldn’t decided whether his mood would stay like this or if when I got there, he would find a reason to be mad at me.) I settled with some jeans and a graphic t-shirt. I straightened my hair, though.

I took a deep breath, announced my departure and left out the door.

I rang the buzzer and told him that I was here, just like old times. I heard the buzzing of the unlocked door and went upstairs to his apartment. I’ve only been here several times, but each time made it even easier. It was exactly 7:00 pm. Perry received a ring at the door.

I was so nervous that I might have almost turned for the corner, but I didn’t know what to expect, really. I mean, it wasn’t like he was going to show up at the door, shirtless or something!

Perry opened the door. He was wearing a deep V-neck t-shirt and cargo pants.

I came into the apartment and Perry closed the door behind me. We sat in silence for about three seconds, away from each other, and yet still on the same couch.

I closed my eyes tightly, took a deep breath and spoke.

“Perry,…I’m extremely sorry for giving you the wrong impression. I really wasn’t trying to do that! I…” I couldn’t continue because Perry had interrupted me.

“Look, I’m the one that’s sorry. I overreacted! I’ve been dying to see you! I hated myself after I realized that you really were telling the truth!”

“And when exactly did you realized?!” I turned to look at him, annoyed. “So, when?”

“Sunday,” he sighed. He looked at me, then looked away and continued with his anecdote. “Well, that Hayden guy came over to my café and he came to talk to me about how there was never and never will there BE a ‘you and him’.”

“Wait! Hayden said that?!”

“Mm-hm.” Perry nodded.

“Huh…I’m going to have to thank him for that.” I muttered to myself.

“Me too.” Perry agreed, now looking at me. “I’m extremely sorry and, to tell you the truth, I feel really stupid!”

“Oh, REALLY?!” I asked, hinting the sarcasm. He grimaced.

“Yeah. I completely forgot about everything that you told me you liked and how differently you do the things that you do…” Perry looked at me; I was looking down, as if in a pensive state when I was just bashful.

Perry tilted his head to try to see what I was looking at. I was aware of how quiet it had gotten, but I didn’t look up at him. He sensed a bit of aggravation within himself. Perry searched for my chin with his fingertips. I shivered at the touch. He made me look at him. We were both at eye level. I stared back at his eyes, but tried to keep a serious expression on my face. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do; Hid the expression that clearly showed on my face as soon as his blue-eyed gaze was on me.

“What’s wrong? Why are you acting like this?” He asked; I still sensed the aggravation in his tone.

“I’m just acting like this because you are.”

“What?” He was instantly confused.

“You,…” I bit my lips, trying to form a correct sentence structure.

Perry slowly let go of my chin and turned to me. He sat cross-legged and waited patiently.

“You don’t know how much I’ve wanted you; from the beginning,…” I paused, because of nervousness instead of sentence. He was about to speak. I put my index finger  up, motioning to hold on a second.

“I know that I’ve made it look like I’ve screwed up in the past, with someone else, but right now…”I went closer in Perry’s direction, touching up his arm. His eyes went wide, the blue almost crashing like iced water. “I’ve never wanted to make it seem that way before.”

Perry stared at me slightly horrified. I took that as nervousness before I could have been offended by it. He didn’t say anything. I retrieved my hand. He was looking down at his feet, (or so I thought).

“You don’t have to prove anything to me. I believe you, already. He said, still looking down.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything.” Something clicked in the back of my head and helped me realize that he probably was just forgiving me from the misunderstanding, but meant that we really weren’t making that much progress to do this. I closed my eyes and sealed my lips together. “Um,…I’m going to just…you know, go.” I started to get up and leave. I got as far as three feet from the door before he tugged on my arm.

“Darlenys…” Perry whispered. That much made me stop; because I had missed the sound of his voice so much that I turned around just to hear it better. I turned to face him, lips still mashed together. Perry bit his lips; something he would do out of indecision-or seductiveness.

He slowly came closer to me. His hold on my arm loosened, only sliding down to my hand. He held onto it. With his other hand, he reached for the door, barely turning the knob so that it was technically “open,” but looked more “closed” than anything . I was about to reach for the door, when suddenly, Perry turned me around. I was standing right behind the door, staring at a guy who wasn’t making any sense at the moment.

“I love you,” He said as he intertwined his fingers with mine. I stared up at him in marvel.

“And…” He continued. I held my breath; my lips were still mashed together. I didn’t think that I was prepared for what came next; (only because I had no idea that it was going to happen in the first place.)

Perry’s face came closer to my ear. “I want you too,” he whispered. I could have sworn that I almost cried. He bent down to kiss my no longer mashed lips. I tried to help him by getting on my tip-toes, almost losing my balance to begin with. Perry grabbed the belt buckles of my jeans and hoisted me onto his body. We closed the door from being against it. It shut a little loudly. Perry kissed me and for the first time in that whole day had I never felt more complete (or so I had thought). Perry walked with me on his body. We followed the path that the wall was leading to: the kitchen.

Perry looked around and stopped. “Whoops!” I laughed.

“Wait! I’ve got an idea!” Perry said, looking past me, to the refrigerated goods, almost, instead of the refrigerator itself. He sat me down on the counter and looked through the fridge, getting two things: whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

“What’s that for?” I felt human enough to ask.

“In case we get hungry.” He left and came back within five seconds.

I rolled my eyes, purposely waiting until he came back.

“I saw that.” He pressed his lips to mine, smiling widely. I used my legs to reel him in closer. He grabbed my waist to finish hoisting me to his. This time, he kept his eyes open enough as to see where he was going. My arms were wrapped around his neck.

We got to his room, where I froze and looked around. It was amazing how neat his apartment was. Perry looked around with me. He carefully set me down on his bed, kissed my forehead and went to the bathroom. I got off the bed and went to the window. It was my favorite part of his room, especially at night. The moon shone through the window and into Perry’s room. It was so peaceful (and calming.)

Perry returned to his room, where I stood at his window, looking outside. He quietly came behind me and kissed me on the cheek. His touch made me shiver from the shock. He was smiling at me. I returned the gesture. This moment couldn’t have been more perfect! Perry pulled me into his arms, carefully and softly, barely touching me.

“Are you okay?” He whispered.

“I was,” I whimpered.

“Nervous?”

“Mm-hm.” I nodded.

“Don’t be. You’re here with ME.” He said, looking straight into my eyes.

I looked at him, cocking my head to the side.

“You’re all I’ll ever need.” Perry whispered.

I figured that I might have given in. I’m the one who set the field in the first place!

“Perry?”

He looked at me with undivided attention.

“I love you, too.” I kissed him, toying with his dark-midnight hair in the process. I walked backwards, trying to remember where his bed was, then hitting it and bending my knees to fall on it.

“Uhf!” I said.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Boy, doesn’t that sound familiar, I thought.

Perry kissed my neck, stopping and looking at me. Had he noticed how hard I was breathing?

“What’s wrong?” I asked. We still had our clothes on, so it wasn’t a matter of disappointment.

“Am I allowed to..?” He attempted a noise that was close to sucking air in.

“Uh…knock yourself out?!” I really had no idea what he meant. Perry laughed. He sucked on my neck. I started giggling. He stared at me and smiled.

I looked at him, serious now and sat up. He had a mischievous look on his face, although he had no idea what I was going to do. I turned him onto his bed and touched his nose, down to his shirt. He stared at me with a smirk on his face. I rolled my eyes with a replying smirk of my own and instructed him to help me take his shirt off. He went for his shirt, where I gawked at his marvelous body. I pressed my two hands lightly on his chest. My hair came down on his chest, tickling him enough to make him laugh.

Perry sat up and looked up at me. I was sitting on him; one leg on each side. I slipped out of my tee-shirt, left in my bra and jeans. He smiled at me, I smiled back. Eventually we were completely in sync with one another. “It was, in fact, the most erotic moment of my life!” Perry  turned to me.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” I smiled in his arms.

“You hungry?”

“Mm. A bit.”

Perry grabbed the whipped cream carefully, as to not unsettle me from my most comfortable spot. He grabbed the chocolate syrup quickly as well. “Which one?” He raised them both.

“Whipped cream, please.”

Perry shook the can and sprayed some in his mouth, missing COMPLETELY.

“You have terrible aim!” I laughed.

“I know…On the plus side, my mouth tastes better than yours.”

“Because I would want THAT!” I let my sarcasm go.

“Yeah!” He said, matter-of-factly.

He came closer to my face and moved his face from side to side, against mine, trying to get as much whipped cream on my face as possible.

“Hey! Perryyyy! Stop!!!” I laughed.

“I’m sorry.” He laughed quietly. Perry grabbed a hand full of my hair in his right hand as he pulled my face closer, licking off the whipped cream off of my face. I giggled. I laughed when some of the whipped cream was sliding down my neck. Perry stopped it from going any further by kissing it to a halt, then licking there as well.

I looked at him and shook my head, laughing a little. His face was a mess. He had whipped cream all over! On his cheeks, on his nose, on his lips and his chin. I took my finger and swiped it off the tip of his nose, where most of the whipped cream had accumulated. Then, I fed it to him. He sucked on my finger, making sure he had gotten all of it. I bit my lips with a small little smirk. I made him lick himself clean. I didn’t want to lick him, really. His lips were another story.

I sat up on my elbows and stared out his window. What a view! The beach looked great! Of course, I wasn’t choosing it over anything else at the moment. Perry looked at me. He kissed my bare shoulder. That caught my attention, and so I looked back at him.

“What time is it?” I tired to look around, but I couldn’t get past his eyes.

His face kind of slumped. “I have no idea.”

“Oh man,” I sighed. “I might have to go to work today,” Not that it mattered, since I worked from home, but everything was at my home, not his.

I paused, not realizing what day it was. “Perry? What day is it?!?!”

He chuckled, “Wednesday.”

“Oh.” I thought this and my times and schedule all in my head. “Actually…I’m free.”

“Ha. That’s great!”

“Do you have to go to work?”

“I’m closing the café.”

“What?!”

“I’m kidding. I’m going, I’m going.”

I rolled my eyes.

Perry and I finally got out of his bed and headed for the bathroom. He got there first, but he let me in (after seeing me pout about it.)

“Um, I need to shower.” I said. I wore one of Perry’s white dress shirts. It was extremely wrinkly, but it had his scent. An unfamiliar musk. Not “man-scented” but perfume-like.

“I know.”

I stared at him. “So, can I…you know, have some privacy, maybe?” I suggested.

“Darlenys, does it really matter anymore?”

“True. Well, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know-brush my teeth or something.”

I shrugged and slipped into the warm shower, stripping myself of his shirt once I was safely inside.

I eventually got dressed and Perry got ready to go to work. I decided to go get some breakfast with him.

Ch.24 (Sometime Around Midnight.)

Arlin was stressing out over the biggest math quiz to have ever existed. It was tomorrow, on Thursday. Then again, there was the trip to look forward to, and today, Hayden would be coming over. Although she couldn’t admit it to herself aloud, she had started to like Hayden, like a guy. Like…

Arlin got up from her bed as soon as she had thought up that little thought and went to the door. He would be coming sooner or later. Arlin was getting extremely anxious, and not because she knew that she’d be failing without his help.

Ah, the doorbell…

Arlin went to answer the door. It was Hayden, alright. Drinking juice. He sipped and sucked on the straw, getting every last drop.

“You done there?” Arlin asked.

“Just about…,” he kept sucking on it. There wasn’t much in there, just sayin’!

Arlin gave Hayden “the look.”

“Can I throw this away inside?” Hayden asked stepping inside after he had finished his fruit punch juice pouch.

“Uh, yeah.” Arlin made Hayden follow her into the kitchen. He threw it away and got to the living room, where he’d dropped his things lightly to the floor.

“Let’s get started!” Hayden said, with a little too much enthusiasm. Hayden caught Arlin in a few of his greenish-blue gazes and Arlin, for some odd reason, always had a writing utensil in her hand which would do amazing somersaults in the air, whacking Hayden on the head! Arlin covered her mouth, trying to hider her laughter, but forming a smile instead.

“Oh my gosh!! Are you okay??!…Again?”

“Yeah. I’m just as fine as the last couple of times.”

Yes. You. Arrrre. Arlin thought, sounding so much like myself.

After about two hours and thirty minutes of “studying time,” Hayden’s phone rang.

“Sorry,” he looked for his phone, “Hello?…Yeah…I’m at Arlin’s house…No. No…”

Arlin stared away from him to give him some privacy.

“No Mom, she’s not my ‘friend’…” He whispered into the speaker of the phone, air-quoting “friend” for his mother to hear the emphasis on her far-off assumptions.

Arlin almost laughed aloud. Yeah right. Hayden, her, “friends.” They could barley be classmates.

“Mom, I’ll call you when I get home.” He shut the phone. “Where were we?”

“Um…”

“Sorry, I mean, if you heard something that you would have thought completely revolting…” Hayden started to apologize.

“Not completely revolting…” Arlin replied in a quiet voice, cutting Hayden off, mid-sentence.

Hayden smiled. “I better get going. I have to be home before dinner.”

“Yeah, sure. Okay. Thanks! I’m so surprised at how easy you make math seem. It’s almost illogical.”

Hayden shrugged. He bit is lip and rove Arlin into an imaginary hospital for about five seconds or so. He grabbed his things and Arlin walked him to the door.

At night, Arlin was on her computer checking mail and listening to music and anything else that could be used to help her stop thinking about… “SKANDAR!!!” Arlin almost jumped off of her bed when she saw the window of Skandar via webcam. She put her hair up, always going for the unimpressive ponytail when she wasn’t looking in a mirror. “Arlin?” Skandar spoke. He squinted through his poor lighting in his room. “Skandar!!” Arlin was instantly partially full of joy. The other parts were full of embarrassment and shame, and not because she had fallen off of her bed.

“Hey! How have you been?! I’ve missed you so much!” Skandar told her earnestly. “Oh my gosh! You have no idea how much I’ve missed you!” Arlin had a crazy thought to show something to Skandar. “Skandar, I’ll be right back!” Arlin shuffled through her things around her room, looking for the specific item that she wanted to show him. “What is it?” Skandar squinted to try to read the letters on the magazine about Narnia and Skandar and his date. “It’s a magazine.” “About?!” “Narnia and the big release date for it to hit theaters. It’s also talking about you and the big premiere party! And…” Arlin gasped at the unexpected little news at the right bottom corner. “You date?” “Date?!” Skandar was confused and taken aback as well. “That’s what it says, Skandar.” Arlin almost sounded mad. “Well, Arlin. I really don’t know what to say about that.” “Skandar…are you dating someone behind my back?” “…No.” He hesitated. “Are you?” He asked her the same question. “Um, no. Why would I?” Arlin interjected just so that she wouldn’t be forced to mention Hayden’s name, for being the closest friend, that just so happens to be a guy. “Exactly! That’s what I’m saying! I’m saying, ‘Why would I have to? It’s pointless if I’m doing this,’ ” He extended his arms and touched the keys on his keyboard. Arlin didn’t catch the drift. “Talking to you through the internet, on a webcam, instead of sleeping.” Arlin knew that Skandar was telling the truth; she was just a little insecure about the rumors that it was getting to her. “Wait! What’s on the cover of that again?!” Skandar pointed, virtually, towards the magazine. “Oh, Narnia, you, Anna, Georgie, William, some Narnians, something about a man living in a car,..” Arlin looked at everything on the cover and named off things that caught her eye. “I have that same magazine! I can’t believe they would write that stuff!” “What stuff?” “The ‘date’ stuff! I specifically told them to keep it a secret…” Arlin gave a disbelieving look. Like paparazzi listen! “Okay, okay. I told them to put in all the things that I had been mentioning about you, and me, and…” Suddenly, Arlin heard a knock at the door where she would have least expected visitors. “Hold on, Skandar. I’ll be right back. Sorry.”“It’s okay, take your time.” Skandar layed his head down on his bed. he didn’t mean to fall asleep. He was doing fine, until he closed his eyes in a very slow blink.“Hayden?!” Arlin yelled in a whisper.

“Open, please?” Hayden signaled by pointing to the handle of the door that led to the balcony and down to the shore. Arlin opened the door, letting him inside.

“What are you doing here?!” Arlin whisper-yelled.

“I came to see you.” Hayden said, with his big, deep blueish-green eyes on Arlin’s face.

“Hayden, you just saw me like six hours ago!” Arlin whispered.

“Why are you whispering?”

“Darlenys is sleeping, and she’ll kill me if I woke her!”

Hayden looked around the dark room and said, “Who’s room is this?”

“Mine.” Arlin told him.He came inside and looked around. “Hmm…nice.”

“Gee, thanks.” Hayden felt a little uneasy about something. he was scratching the back of his neck and head, looking away. “Um, Hayden…?”

“Hmm, what?” He looked at her as soon as she had spoken his name.“Did you come here for a specific reason…? Or can I just go to sleep?”

“Are you too tired? I actually just wanted to, uh…talk to you…about, ehm, something…"Hayden was a nervous wreck.

“Oh, okay. What is it?”

“Can we actually just…you know, take a walk?”

Arlin looked back at her computer. Then she looked at Hayden.

“Sure.” Hayden opened the glass door of Arlin’s balcony and offered for her to go first. She went back to her room and put on her uggs really quickly and put a white delicate dress over her tank and shorts. The dress was basically simple. It had delicately sewn white flowers on it and was a bit short, but she had a pair of shorts on underneath.

“How does she do that,” Hayden was thinking to himself in his mind.Arlin’s heart sped by as she approached the balcony’s glass doors, thus getting closer to Hayden. “Let’s go,” She whispered breathlessly.

“Er, right.” Hayden opened the door a little more and let Arlin go outside first.“So…, what did you want to talk to me about?” She spoke in a normal tone.“What? What about our walk?”“Well,” Arlin’s arms lifted effortlessly and smacked down on her sides, “We walked a little.” Hayden rolled his eyes and grabbed Arlin’s hand, just swiftly putting his hand into hers, without any of the fingers-interlocking-mumbo-jumbo, and pulled her along towards the Fire Emergency walk-way towards the beach streets. Arlin and Hayden’s hands seemed to have stayed together, and Arlin practically forgot. Well, they walking absent-mindedly, so she didn’t FORGET forget. Up until Hayden loosened up a little and started talking about Jessica, Arlin took her hand back, sort of smiling at him. “Um,…” Hayden started nervously.“So, you seem to be holding quite the conversation there, Hayden.” He laughed. He never laughed at anything sarcastic that Arlin had mentioned. Hayden cleared his throat and looked away from Arlin. “So, what ever happened to Jessica?” He finally spoke.“Jessica?” Arlin sounded a little dumbfounded.“You know, that girl from math class who…”“No, no! I KNOW who Jessica IS, I just…didn’t know that you were going to talk about her.” “Well, what did you think I was going to talk about?” Hayden asked. And, as if on cue, a young couple passed by, holding hands, unwilling to let go, causing Arlin and Hayden to make some room on the enormous side walk for the two insignificant people.Hayden was really quiet during the rest of their wlak. “So, how’s Skandar?” He started again.Arlin kind of squinted her eyes at Hayden and then just looked away. “He’s…good. He’s doing good.” Hayden looked away from her, looking straight ahead, at a palm tree that was near a bench, almost right on the beach. All that was missing was the sand, which was a couple of paces away. “You tired?”“Uh, not really…” Arlin responded.“Good. Let’s sit down.” Arlin looked after him confused, and then, in a way she couldn’t even explain to herself as soon as Hayden held her hand. Arlin suddenly found herself sitting down next to Hayden on a bench, under a peculiar little palm tree, a few paces from the beach. “Hayden, what is going on? Why are you acting so strange?”“I have a feeling that we can’t be friends, Arlin.”“What?! And why not?!”“Because I’m attracted to you.” Arlin’s mouth formed a small impish smile, blushing altogether. “And you’re attracted to me…” Hayden continued.

“WHAT?!” Arlin’s face was still a pinkish-red glow on bronzish skin.

“Well, aren’t you?” He said this quietly, getting very, very close to Arlin’s face, making it hard for her to talk. Hayden’s nose was about an inch away from hers.

“Do you mind?!” She said.

“No, not really, thank you.” Hayden smiled.

“So, are you saying that you don’t find me 'attractive’?” Hayden added emphasis on the last word.

“Well..I’m saying that you are not that I think you are.”

“But…thinking that I am is just the same..”

“No, I didn’t say 'thinking,’ I said, 'saying’ that you are are attractive is the same as me thinking it…Wait!…”

“Oh! So you DO think that I’m attractive!” He yelled. Arlin tried to look away. “So, you’ve got to be attracted to me if you find me attractive.”“No.” Arlin blurted out, making sure it sounded matter-of-factly. Hayden raised an eyebrow. “I’m just saying that’s not necessarily true.” Hayden’s nose touched with Arlin’s.“Not necessarily.”

Hayden kissed Arlin. He didn’t know exactly how long he’d been wanting to do this, but he had an idea. Hayden’s lips pressed against Arlin’s ever so slightly. Arlin was sitting on a bench, under a small palm tree, with a boy who wasn’t British, at midnight. And she liked it? Well, let’s just say Hayden wasn’t the only one who was kissing back. Arlin didn’t know what was going on; (Well, she did, she just didn’t want to believe that it was real.) Hayden’s lips, smacked on hers. They were even making those kissy-smacking noises that always happened in the movies! His lips were soft; softer than she could have ever imagine them to be. It was almost surreal how perfect this moment was.

For the moment, she couldn’t remember where they were, why they were, or who they were. All she could feel were Hayden’s lips. Oh yes. She knew those very well. The tips of Hayden’s fingers touched Arlin’s face. It was strange. Arlin tried to pull away (in her mind), but physically she just sat there like Hayden was actually…Arlin almost pulled away then, but Hayden had stopped kissing her, so she didn’t look rude when she stopped; out of nowhere, because GOD FORBID THAT. Hayden bit his lips, looking away a little. Arlin stared at him, but it wasn’t in horror, which should have been her reaction. He cleared his throat.

Ch.25 (Thursday Morning)

Suddenly, Hayden’s phone ran. He picked it from out of his back pocket and looked at the caller i.d. It was Arlin. “Why are you calling me?” Hayden asked her.

“Oh crap! Pick it up!!” She yelled.

“Okay!!” Hayden picked up his phone. “Hello?”

On the other line…

Dark, hot nights were just the kinds of things that usually made me in the mood for some cold cereal,…and gave me the urge to use the bathroom. I could hardly ever sleep when it got hot wherever I was. I got really restless. I got out of bed and went to the bathroom and washed my face with cold water. Then, I went to the kitchen and got some Honey Bunches of Oats; preferably with almonds at the time. I walked around with my bowl and decided to check on the girls. Marlen was fast asleep, in an awkward position, as always. Arlin’s room was a lot quieter than it should have been.

I opened her door carefully. Her computer was still on, which was honestly normal. I went to shut it off and noticed that she had been chatting with Skandar. Apparently, he fell asleep on his keyboard or something. I turned off the computer and looked for Arlin. I looked at the only possible place that she could have been in at 1:22 a.m.: her private bathroom. I knocked on the door.

“Arlin?”

No reply. “Arlin? Are you in there?”

Still nothing.

“Oh, so that’s how you want to play this game? Okay!”

…

“Arlin? Are you okay atleast?”

It just got quieter.

“Ohoho! So it’s the silent treatment?!” I opened the door to a dark, empty bathroom.

I looked around for a phone and called her cellphone. She never went anywhere without it! Or so I thought, as I heard her ringtone a lot closer than I would have expected. I went through her contacts and called her friend Jessica. She didn’t answer. I decided to call her other friend, Hayden.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Hello?” He answered back.

“Hayden?”

‘Yeah…this is Hayden. Who is this?”

“Darlenys.”

“Oh, hey!”

Oh my god. “Have you seen Arlin?”

“Um, Arlin, Arlin…” Hayden walked away from her and walked back towards her casually. “Arlin?! Is that…Is that you?! Get , get, GET OVER HERE!!”

“So, you found her?”

“Yeah! Don’t worry Darlenys! I found her!”

“So you’ll bring her back home safely?”

“That’s part of the plan!”

“What PLAN?!”

“Uh!..” Hayden hung up on me and put the phone on silent. Arlin stared at Hayden.

“What was THAT all about?!”

“Darlenys was looking for you!”

“Oh my god! Out of ALL the nights for her to wake up in the middle of it all…” Arlin murmured.

“Com’on. Let’s take you home.” Hayden offered.

“I am SO dead.”

Hayden walked Arlin to the apartment and went through the fire-escape pathway, which was the same way that Hayden had come in through, and they had both left. Arlin peeked through the backdoor to see if I had went off to bed, (and lucky for her, I semi-trusted Hayden, and I had.) Hayden walked in briefly to make sure that Arlin was okay.

“Whoah.” Hayden whispered.

“What?” Arlin whispered back.

“Nothing…I’ve just never been in HERE before.”

“Well, enjoy, because I doubt that you’re going to be in here again.”

“Why is that?” Hayden asked. Arlin looked at him.

“What do you mean, ‘Why is that?!’ ” Arlin said, getting to the point.

“Well,…Hayden,…I don’t…like you-like THAT.” Arlin tried to sound less harsh, but it all just sounded…HARSH.

“Oh, REALLY?! Because I can tell you right now that I wasn’t the only one who was kissing BACK.” Hayden looked her straight in the eyes.

“I know…And I’m sorry.” Arlin tried to look away from his blue-ish gaze.

“WHAT?!” Hayden yelled in a whisper.

She pulled on his hand and they went out to the fire-escape pathway.

“Hayden, I know that I…wasn’t just standing there, but I don’t like you.”

“I can’t believe his.”

“Well, believe it.”

Hayden looked at Arlin and came closer. Arlin just looked at him. Hayden came even closer. Arlin stayed still, looking at Hayden. Hayden looked at Arlin.

“Do it, if you have to, but I’m not lying to you. I love Skandar.” Arlin told him seriously. And it was honestly true. She knew what she was doing. Arlin was completely certain that she loved Skandar. She couldn’t wait ‘til he got back.

Hayden nodded. He took a step back. “Okay. Okay. I understand.”

“Hayden, you’re a really good friend, and I do care about you.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Look, I’m sorry that I wasn’t the one, but I know exactly who is.”

“Who?”

“Just come by my house later in the morning, for school.”

Thursday Morning. Not the day of the bonfire trip. BUTTTT, Skandar’s back!(:

Skandar’s finally packing his bags to come see Arlin again. The day that she doesn’t entirely know about has come!

Arlin was going to go to school with Hayden this morning. She was going to “fill him in” on the little plan that she had been building up with Jessica. “Where has she been, anyway?” Hayden said as he followed Arlin out the door.

“Um, I don’t know. All I know is that she texted me and told me that she’ll be in school today, and that she’s definitely going to the trip!”

“Hmm.”

“Just promised me you’ll make this special for her tomorrow.”

“Of course! You know, this would have been a heck of a lot easier if she would have told me or tried to.”

“Yeah. Right.” Arlin’s sarcasm seeped through.

“Well, let’s go.”

Ch.26 (The Bonfire.)

School was pretty easy that day. Aside from that math quiz, nothing was too stressful. Hayden understood Arlin completely as to the whole reason for her “denial” towards him. Everything was going pretty easy.

Skandar was about two to three hours away from seeing Arlin. It was almost insane! He just had to go through the whole customs and get his luggage and get some real food. (For some reason, no matter what class you ride on a plane, the best kind of food that airlines can offer are peanuts.) Skandar went through about seven bags of peanuts in half of the (8) eight hours or so of flight it took to get from London, England to California itself. Unfortunately, he was too tired to actually go visit Arlin, not that she knew that he was currently in the U.S., not to mention, California, but he wanted to surprise her by video-chatting with her.

12:33 A.M. -SkantheMan would like to chat via videocamera.                                

                        ACCEPT OR DENY

After he had spent the entire time sleeping, he could actually stay awake at this time, unlike when he was in England and he had to practically tape his eyelids from closing just to talk to Arlin.

Arlin was just seconds away from signing out, when she saw that “SkantheMan” wanted to conversate. Arlin had just remembered that he would be here tomorrow and clicked “Accept” with a hint of over-excitableness. “Hi, Skandar! You’re coming back tomorrow, right?!” She said. “Hello, Arlin! Yes; yes, I am coming tomorrow! I’m so excited!!”

“I’m so glad you’re going to be home.”

“Me too!” Skandar smiled. “Skandar, I’m sorry, but I have to go to bed; tomorrow’s the day of the trip that I’ve been waiting for!”“Oh, well, I’ll say 'goodnight’ then.” He smiled.

Arlin and Hayden walked to the school bus and stopped to look for Jessica.

“Remember the plan?”

“Yup.” Hayden said.

“Cool.” Arlin said in a very gangster voice. Hayden shook his head.

“She’s coming!!” Arlin and Hayden did their handshake. “Hey, Jessica! We’ve missed you!” Hayden hugged her. Jessica sighed as if she had died and gone to “Jayden” heaven.

“I’ve missed you too!” Jessica mumbled. Hayden broke apart the hug, and Jessica sighed sadly, and then Hayden put his hand through hers, swiftly, in the “friend” way, but Jessica didn’t care! She could feel the blood racing through her veins, and suddenly, everything was gone and it was only her and Hayden. “Arlin!” Hayden called, “Look who’s here?!?!”

Jessica waved. Arlin waved as she walked towards them.

“Hey, Jess, where’ve you been?”

“I don’t know, but I’m glad I’m back,” she said, giving Arlin signals. Arlin looked at Hayden more than Jessica, smiling at him and sending a “good job” signal.

“Hey, let’s go set our stuff down.”

“Uh, sure!” Jessica agreed. She smiled wider as Hayden pulled her along. It meant that they were still attached to each other. Arlin was happy that everything was going exactly as planned. At Skandar’s…Skandar called Arlin’s phone, but it just kept ringing. She didn’t answer. That was weird. He called home. “Hello?” I said, picking up some clothes and putting them in the hamper for later.

“Hey, Darlenys? It’s Skandar!”

“OHMYGOSH! SKANDAR! How’s your movie coming along?!”

“Ha, actually, I’m at my beach house in California.”

“OH!! You’re here?!?! I’m so excited to see you, Skandar!! Arlin’s out right now…” the doorbell rang. I buzzed in my visitor.

“He-…” Perry started to say, but I put a finger on his lips, which he kissed.

Skandar continued, “Yeah. I just finished filming and I’m just so excited to see her!”

“Well, you can come over and wait 'til she gets back if you want…She’s at her school’s Bonfire trip. Didn’t she tell you?” Perry started kissing my hand, up my arm, onto my neck.

“Well, if that’s alright…”

“Of course it is!”“Okay then, bye!” Skandar hung up.

“Well, bye to YOU, too, best friend.” I ended the call.

“Who was that?” Suddenly, Perry was at my ear and had me giggling.

“Skandar!” I giggled.

“Arlin’s boyfriend?” Perry asked, getting away from my ear.

“Yes. He’s back, finally!”

“And he’s coming HERE?” Perry sounded upset. I looked at him and tugged on his hand. He followed me into my room and I went for the closet as he sat on my bed. “Well, until Arlin comes back. They’ll leave…Well. HE will, anyway. Why?”

“I don’t know?”

“What are you looking for?” He asked.

“Something nice to wear.”

“Oh, baby.” I looked at him and laughed. “What?” He asked.

“Nothing.” I snickered.

“You know, I passed by that beach, the one with all of Arlin’s friends, and it seems very ROMANTIC…” Perry got up.

“Perry, you’re a GENIUS!”

“Yeah, I know, ” he came behind me and nuzzled his face into my neck, kissing it.

I turned around and said, “Skandar can go surprise Arlin!”

“Uh, yeahhh…That too!”

I laughed. “I know what you meant. Thanks, babe.” I kissed him. He squeezed my cheeks lightly and I backed up into the closet. He pulled back.

“Oh, I’ll wear this!” I said.

“I love how you look in anything!”

“Yeah, especially 'nothing’.” I said in a low voice. Perry chuckled. I put on my halter-top dress with the delicately sewn flower patterns and my small light brown uggs. Perry held my hand. “Hmm…I think Skandar’s here!”

“He better not be making 'googley’ eyes at you!” “Perry, he HAS a girlfriend, remember?!?!”

“I know, but STILL.”

“You’re hilarious when you’re jealous!” I bit his ear lightly.

“Ow!”

“Oh, puh-lease!” I went for the buzzer and stood by the door. “Hey!” I hugged Skandar. Perry cleared his throat.

“Oh, geez!”

“Com'on, Skandar!”

“Where are we going?” He asked.

“To find Arlin so that she can finally see you!”

At the bonfire again…

The music was playing, and Jessica and Hayden had REALLY started to click. Arlin was really glad for them. She was sitting down, roasting a marshmallow on a stick. She poked at it with her finger. “Hey! Wanna dance?” She looked up to Hayden extending his hand out.

“Where’s Jess?” Arlin asked, staring at him.

“Dancing with David Casper.”

“Hmmm….”

“Oh, Com'on!” “Okay, okay.” She giggled.

Out of all the songs, it HAD to be a Taylor Swift song, and it just HAD to remind her of Skandar. It was their song, “Breathe.” It had barely started when someone came behind them and tapped on Hayden’s shoulder, and whispered, “May I cut in?” in a beautiful British accent. Arlin’s body froze and she started to cry.

“Um, sure…?”

“Skandar.” Skandar said.

“SKANDAR?!?!”

“Oh, so you’re Skandar?” Hayden asked, letting go of Arlin slowly.

“Yes, that’s me. Who are you?” He asked Hayden.

“Oh, I’m Hayden Christensen.”

“…Ohhh!” Skandar just said.

“Well, get to dancing guys!” He patted Skandar on the back.

“Skandar?! You’re BACK?!” Arlin walked towards him.

“Yes, love.” He held out his hand and stroked her cheek with the other, “And I’ve missed you dreadfully.”

“Probably not as much as I have.” Arlin whispered as she was finally swaying in Skandar’s arms.

“Hmmm. I’ll take you up on that.” They finished dancing to their song.

Perry and I danced far from them, seeing a lot of our friends had crashed this little high school trip as well. Keyra and Joe were there, and Noriette and Nick, and even Yasmin and Kevin. Aishah, Marlen and Dylan and Cole were eating melted marshmallows and laughing about who knows what. Suddenly, “Crazier” came on, and Perry and I walked closer to everyone else so that we could hear the music better. Keyra and Joe walked over towards us slowly; as did the rest of the party crashers. Arlin looked at Skandar, and Skandar looked at her too. They put their noses together, also their foreheads. Perry and I were already ahead of them.

“Arlin?” Skandar whispered. She looked up at him, not that she already wasn’t, “You make me crazier.” He kissed her.

Sequel? ;)

[kateemmerson]

#LocationFree - How are global nomads coping with their wanderlust lifestyle?

No one has been left unscathed, have we? We have all had to adjust, re-jig, process life, handle loss, and take stock …every single one of us? Same storm, different ship, right?

Amidst all the “stuff” going on globally, I recently listened to my heart and launched my 5th book, titled “10 Lessons for Living #LocationFree.” Originally planning to launch it much earlier, I waited until the time felt right and until I had the right energy to tackle it. I honestly feel that now, more than ever, we need to keep our dreams, ideals and possibilities ALIVE and top of mind.

Even if we are a bit stuck now, our thinking and feeling do NOT have to be stuck.

In the process of writing this book, I wanted to offer readers some varied perspectives and thus set about interviewing 16 awesome folks to get their views on living this lifestyle. When the book was released just 2 weeks ago, I really wanted to check back in and get their updates on living “LocationFree.” We are all between 40 and 60 years old, living our own version of this lifestyle all around the world. Essentially I wanted to see how the year had shaped up for them since our initial interview –  to see if they were more hellbent on continuing this vagabond lifestyle, to understand if something fundamental had shifted for them, or if perhaps world events have made them reconsider lifestyle choices related to all things #LocationFree?

#LocationFree is my preferred term, but it is often referred to as Global Nomad, Digital Nomad, Location Independent, Portable Pro, etc. The name is less important than what we live day-to-day.

I wanted to update myself, too. I have honestly had a profoundly ‘interesting’ year. I’m definitely NOT saying it was easy and straightforward, but that I dug deep and found ways to try and accept and lean into what was going on rather than resist it all. The latter option felt futile and counter-productive in every form. I contracted and tested positive for the covid lurgy back in March 2020 after hurriedly exit-ing South Africa. I was out there to launch my 4th book, “Write your Book in 100 Days,” with my business partner. We had multiple book launches and events, live interviews from some major PR rolling out. It was our chance to inspire and reconnect with all the wonderful South African writers in our community. Plus, all my annual medical appointments were booked for what might have been my last regular visit to South Africa.

As I tuned in and reacted to what was unfolding, I knew I needed to get on a plane fast, to the UK. I was due to travel via Dubai to visit a friend stationed there but decided to hotfoot it directly to the UK, just a couple of days before lockdown kicked in. After all, South Africa was officially no longer any form of “base” for me after the break up with my partner, so I didn’t fancy getting “stuck” there.

I knew I wanted to get to my mum in time for the first proposed lockdown so she wouldn’t be on her own. Well, for sanity, company, and a bit of TLC more than needing to “look after” her – she’s a super strong woman! But before being able to get to her, after testing positive for covid (I only ever experienced mild symptoms, thank goodness), I had to isolate myself for a month before it was deemed safe for me to stay with mum in her presidential home. We then ‘enjoyed’ three months of strict lockdown together. Lucky we had too much TV, laughter, wine, great food, daily walks, and I also celebrated my birthday with her. Zoom Style with friends around the world.

One of the hardest business challenges was letting go of our international Writing Retreats that were booked. It often takes folk at least a  year to decide, book, and pay for one of our retreats. Writers from all over the world were joining Sarah and me in Greece, Italy, and Spain for a total of four retreats and residencies. We had to face cancellations, field the uncertainty with massive deposits we had paid across to secure hotels, and handle the non-refundable deposit challenge. We initially postponed and shuffled dates later in 2020 in the eternal hope that we could still host them later in the year, and had clients ready to hop on planes… and then finally releasing them all in favour of 2021 dates. We “lost” some clients who couldn’t move to the new dates, and have not yet been able to start filling those spaces for 2021. That was my main income revenue down the sink. I know the entire world understands all the drastic financial challenges of the year and I am not alone in that. 

The moment it was “safe” enough to travel, and the world eased open a bit in the UK, I travelled to a wee Scottish island, Iona, for an overdue, personal and significant retreat. I had been wanting to reconnect with Iona to organise a writing retreat, so I was fulfilling two objectives. It is a very sacred isle that offers deep healing and was just what I needed. Mum was happy  (and I guess sad) to finally wave goodbye after three intense months together. The year has allowed me to live what I call a “revised version” of living location free – with restrictions and other things factored in, like everyone. I was planning on spending 2020 starting to look for my next Northern bases, so that has obviously been postponed. My heart is being pulled by the idea of setting up some version of flexible homes in both Scotland and the Mediterranean – but that will need to wait until I can travel abroad to explore that option more fully.

I am just not a ONE HOME type of gal. Any future partner I have in life needs to know that a deep love for travel and adventure is wired into my cells. But I am starting to consider a couple of bases to move between, with loads of side- travel too!

So I relished a much quieter work year. I was already planning on taking time off from running regular online writing mentorships as I needed a break from that intense type of work, and then all our summer writing retreats retreated into the distance. So I took most of the year off to be in the GAP. I stayed in quieter retreat –type mode with myself.

I embarked on an intense, personal retreat process on Iona to recalibrate again. I went offline for 3 weeks and 80% offline for a further 5 weeks. The poor wifi signal helped that switching off process. But this was not about covid. To be honest, it was more related to where I am in my life and business cycle. I needed to do a mammoth, triple-angled closing out process. One was the ending of my relationship after five years, and another was leaving South Africa, and the third closing out a few aspects of what used to make up my business. But all that was happening despite covid’s impact. You can read more about that journey here.

On Iona I also fell headlong into a fantastic new heart-based hobby with the actual “making” of books, learning the art and skill of “Book Binding” or BookArt. I am smitten and have a bag of tools, paper, ink, and waxed linen thread to lug around now. If ever you come on a retreat with me, you will be sure to make your own book from now on!

Uhmmm, yes, the irony is that my motto is #LIVELIGHTELIVELARGE, so excess clothes can get turfed out of the suitcase but my new bookmaking tools will have to stay put for this #LocationFree gal.

I am still 100% pursuing my own version of living #LocationFree, just with the added goal of looking for a couple of places to call a “base” in 2021. Love Kate x

***Here is what some OTHER global Nomads say about how this year impacted their gallivanting lifestyle around the world. All of these amazing folk below have contributed to my latest book to offer their take on being #LocationFree.

* My global nomadship is NOT over yet! Dee Before COVID-19 stopped us all in our tracks, I had been already considering my global footprint and thinking about how I could still travel and work as a nomad, but with more and more respect for the environment by reducing my use of fossil fuels.

Since being “stuck” at my daughter’s house since March 1st, I have had more time to contemplate my next move, and I think I will be much more mindful about the “gigs” I say yes to in terms of length. Instead of jumping from plane to plane and delivering multiple workshops or events in one week, I will spaciously alter my availability and only offer one city a week for short jobs. In addition, I’m considering “putting myself out to hire” to communities for 3-6 month, longer-term projects.

As for this crazy year, I have still felt like a “nomad” because most of my international work has continued online, but I’ve been receiving some “snail mail” at my daughter’s address where I’m staying, and I don’t like it. My daughter and friends tease me, saying, “ooh, look, you have mail!” which I vehemently deny! Haha!

I did join a gym in my daughter’s town but, I made sure it was one of the franchise-type ones that proliferate Australia so that when I’m back on the road, I can still make use of the membership.

I still live out of my suitcase. It’s on a shelf, in the cupboard, in my daughter’s spare room, and I have deliberately done very little extra shopping this year and still buy my suitcase-sized “top-ups.” All my purchases have still been with the thought that I will eventually be back on the road.

As of December 2020, bookings for work in early 2021 have started rolling in, and I’m feeling the pullback towards the actual road (not flights) that will most likely be my future for at least the next 12 months until our international borders and flights are safe again. My global nomadship is not over yet!Yours in Community, Dee

Dee Brooks is a mum of four adults and is a passionate community development practitioner and trainer with over 20 years of experience. She has been an Intentional Nomad since 2015 and has travelled and worked in over 20 countries, creating impact through capacity building and knowledge sharing. http://jeder.com.au

*What is COVID offering US in terms of new perspectives? Martin When Covid struck, all my jobs and activities came to quite an abrupt halt. But organically, other things suddenly needed to be done. My life in a nutshell… Go with the flow, take things as they come, and run with it as best you can.

Pre-Covid, I was housesitting, hiking, travel guiding, and occasionally giving sushi workshops. When all that stopped, for my dad, who lives alone, all his support and social engagements/contacts were terminated as well. So I kind of organically transitioned into being his only daily visitor and part-time caregiver. A foundation I occasionally volunteer at was seeing a huge dip in the (mostly 55+ aged) volunteer availability, so my “whenever I can, I’ll let you know” volunteering turned into a fixed few days a week. With the rest of the time, I worked on my campervan conversion, which I was not really getting around to before Covid. So you could say that just as in life, Covid took but replaced other things in its place for me to make a difference… And no less important, it also gave me space to remember what I was passionate about and the time to work on it as well.

Looking forward, my future perspective has not changed much with Covid. I will keep living as a nomad, primarily housesitting going from place to place, alternated with some hiking travel guiding and volunteering here and there, and being a self-supporting van-lifer the rest of the time. What Covid did do, however, is make me realize how positive and stable this self-supportive lifestyle made me, as when mass-hysteria struck, I accepted it as it came and just took it in my stride.

To me, the best way to approach the whole Covid-situation is to look at what it is offering in terms of new perspectives, rethinking priorities and time away from work, commuting, and stress in favor of me-time. It is pretty much nailed on the head by this little quote by Karen Salmansohn:

You gotta look for the good in the bad, the happy in the sad, the gain in your pain, what makes you grateful, not hateful. And if there is no good in the bad, or happy in the sad, then you are put in that spot right there, right then, to help create it for yourself and the people around you… May you be happy and well, Martin Martin Van Den Berg is a full-time professional housesitter, capable with all animals but specialising in big or “difficult” dogs and packs. Willing to travel. dutch.mountainman@gmail.com       https://www.facebook.com/martinvdberg73


* Will we resume nomadic life? Nancy It was sheer coincidence that we moved into a long-term rental the day that Spain went into lockdown! A day later and we would have needed approval from the police to move, to drive elsewhere other than to the supermarket for essential supplies. My unexpected pulmonary embolism in April 2019 had stopped our travels and, due to ongoing medical treatment, necessitated us staying in Oliva for a while. As we liked it here, at the end of that year, totally unrelated to the pandemic, we decided to stay in the area longer and, in January 2020, found a new home near the sea.

Even if we had booked another Air B&B, ready to travel again, it’s unlikely we’d have been able to. As a new tenant hadn’t been secured for the townhouse we’d been renting, we would have had to stay there longer. This would have been so frustrating! I was always excited when moving-on and to have no choice but to stay would have been very hard. Instead, we could look forward to our new home close to the beach!

My online work continued despite the pandemic, and my weekdays didn’t really alter as I sat at the computer in my home-office as usual. The virus situation has definitely changed our nomadic mindset, though, and now I’m not even sure if we’ll resume our journey!

The pandemic in Europe and ever-changing border restrictions make it difficult to travel, so for now, we’ve accepted it’s necessary to stay-put. Instead of looking forward to exploring new places, we appreciate the opportunity and extra time available to visit our own area, which is very varied and beautiful. We’ve also made some friends here and, in a time when we cannot easily see family in the UK, these relationships are all the more important.

As we’ve not had to pack-up the car to move-on in a single journey, we’ve also gradually acquired more possessions and are making our current rental a ‘home.’ The more we become settled, putting down roots, it’s so much harder to consider moving away. Maybe one day we’ll revise our wanderlust, maybe not. Perhaps we’ll take holidays again instead. We’re just not dwelling on that.

Although we’ve always had a flexible attitude, this year has taught-us that absolutely anything unexpected can happen! We’re OK, and we have each other, our health, an income, and a home, so do appreciate this as never before. Kind regards, Nancy Nancy Benn is a versatile virtual assistant with more than ten years’ experience providing efficient support to clients. Working remotely from her home office, Nancy helps entrepreneurs achieve more time and headspace to develop their business by supporting and encouraging their endeavours by providing outstanding, skilled admin and secretarial support. www.directpaservices.co.uk         
www.nancybenn.com


*Coincidence doesn’t exist. I always believed that! Jan What happened to this digital nomad during the Covid pandemic? I guess the same as with all the others: being stuck in one place and not moving anymore. In my case, I’m stuck in Budapest in Hungary. Coincidentally, as a Dutch citizen, I already had a house in Hungary, and I am a resident in this country. Something that, after the fact, turns out to be a good thing. I will explain, and this explanation shows once more, that coincidence doesn’t exist. It was for a reason that I got stuck here.

In February 2019, I left the Netherlands and started my digital nomad existence. South America, Spain, and South Africa. In April 2020, I ended up in a very strict lockdown in South Africa, and after three tough weeks, I was finally able to return to the Netherlands on a repatriation flight. From The Netherlands, I flew immediately to my home in eastern Hungary. It was a safe haven in these bizarre times. It was also far removed from covid, with only 2 cases known out of the 3 000 inhabitants in the village.

After a few weeks of being in Hungary, a letter fell on the mat from the Dutch authorities. They stated that with retroactive effect to February 2019 (!) I was no longer officially living in the Netherlands, that I was not allowed to continue my business there and that I was no longer insured for medical expenses.

Pay attention! With more than one year retroactive effect!

Panic! What’s next? At that time, there was only one option: I would have to live 100% as a resident in Hungary and build a new company structure with two limited companies: one in the Netherlands containing all the customers and one in Hungary where I am an employee. Subsequently, I was accepted into the Hungarian health insurance system (which is cheap, but not the world’s best) and a perfect private health insurance top-up that will enable me to be anywhere in the world and still have good insurance!

All of this turned out to be a golden solution for me as a nomad. The taxes in Hungary are the lowest in Europe, and even after my retirement in some years, the 0% income tax is Europe’s best! I am currently renting an apartment in the heart of downtown Budapest, and at the weekends I visit my house in the countryside to relax. This is truly the ideal “snob-life’ of all the Budapest-inhabitants!

Coincidence doesn’t exist. I never believed in that. But all these puzzle pieces came together so precisely into one nice new picture. So with all that happened to me, I have to admit: coincidences might just exist!

While I am stuck in Hungary for now, I spend ALL my time preparing for the future! Jan

Jan Van Kuijk has been living partly in the Netherlands and partly in Hungary for more than 10 years. The two countries finally became too small for him, and in 2018, after 15 years of preparation, he decided to travel the world as a Digital Nomad. With his work on WordPress and Joomla websites, he is generating sufficient income to live his dream. https://digitalnomadlifestyle.nl      https://janvankuijk.nl


*Cruising (or not) with Covid – Debbie Well, it’s been an interesting couple of months – thank you, 2020!

From being aboard ‘that ship’ which was disallowed docking in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico, to finally disembarking our guests in San Diego, after 29 days onboard! Our guests got an additional 15 days cruising on the house, and of course, courtesy of corona!

Then, many of us got ill and had to deal with “isolationship,” which in itself added a new dimension to both cruise life, as well and levels of sanity and productivity! Getting the South African crew repatriated back to our own country was another covid challenge, but we finally made it to home soil in June, three months after the break-out onboard our floating home. At this stage, a total of 60 days of “isolationship” had been achieved, and it is no small feat to spending that amount of time on your own in a room that is hard to pace 10 steps without having to stop dead!

Since then, the waiting to return to what we love has taken its toll in various forms, forcing many to find alternative employment sources. I have kept myself busy by doing some ‘self-reflection and tweaking,’ a vital step to recalibrating and accessing what makes it out of the covid crisis with you and what needs to be resolved and rested!

I have decided to study a diploma in HR to be better equipped in my line of work and where I see myself adding relevance; making memories with my family, and building a legacy in my gorgeous granddaughter’s life while watching the world continue to be crazed about vaccines and searching for new normals!

Living life #LocationFree post-covid will have its own set of challenges, but I am hopeful that we will be traveling and impacting more lives in the near future! Remember at this time, to be kind – to those who don’t understand or think the way you do, and it’s OK to be different – after all, that’s what it takes to live #LocationFree. Love Debbie

Debbie Botha courageously leapt at the chance to travel and showcase her training development, coaching, negotiation, and change- management skills within the world of cruising. She now wears officer stripes on her shoulders and a smile on her face as she explores international waters is studying HR, dabbles in Bitcoin, and revels in being a nurturing Nana. linkedin.com/in/debbiebothaglobal        Instagram: @debbiebothaofficial


*Life Has Shifted A Little – Chris and Jillian We had moved places in Morocco a few times. We had decided that we needed our own space after two and a half months in the hostel we were painting in, and we moved into an apartment in Tinghir. Shortly after we moved into our new place, the lockdown was lifted. And even though we were some of the only foreigners around, we weren’t being hassled too much to come and buy things.

We moved out to Rissani after two weeks, which was located at the edge of the Sahara. The roads were now just starting to open up for people to move between towns and cities. After a few weeks there, we read a news headline saying that all foreigners had to leave Morocco by August 10th. We then decided that we wanted to spend some time on the coast, so off we went to Essaouira.

We ended up renting an Airbnb for a really good discounted price inside the medina. There were still very few tourists around, and we were getting hassled by more people to come and buy things. We had booked a flight to leave on the 8th, and a few days before the day, the flight was canceled. We then read more information about needing to leave and found out that it was fake news and didn’t need to go.

We rented the place for two more months, and it was nice to have our own space and work on our own projects. The owner of the Airbnb had upgraded the wifi to accommodate our needs, and we accomplished a lot of much needed online work. The locals’ mood had dropped, and eventually, we had started to see drunk people in the day fist fighting at random times. This was not normal, so we felt that it was time to go.

We booked a direct flight to Turkey, and we travelled to Casablanca to exit the country. There were not many people in the airport, which made the experience one of the easiest times we’ve had travelling. We were told that we would expect to get tested for Covid when we arrived at the airport, this didn’t happen. We were also told that we would expect to get tested when we arrived in Turkey, this didn’t happen either. Turkey was open, and everything was business as usual. In the last two weeks here, the Turkish government has started implementing some restrictions. Restaurants are closed except for takeout, a weeknight curfew of 8:00, and everything except grocery stores are closed over the weekends.

We have no doubt in our minds that this is the only way we can live our lives. Travel has probably changed forever due to Covid, but we will deal with it. We won’t be returning to conventional life, and we find too much happiness in this way of life

Chris de Cap I’ve been an artist my whole life, more than half of which as a tattoo artist. I spent the bulk of my adult life being nomadic, however, mostly in Canada. Now I’ve taken my nomadic habits out into the world. http://www.artisticvoyages.com/        www.instagram.com/artisticvoyages

*Clearing the decks and learning what it means to be resilient I feel like 2020 is the year that we were all forced to stop, take a deep breath, and look at how we are living. The word that kept coming up for me this year was resilience.

Here in Spain, we experienced one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe and in a city like Malaga where we are used to being active and social life quickly started to feel a little surreal. I remember saying to friends that it felt like I was living in a Netflix movie. Deserted streets, no noise or energy.

There is a thriving community of entrepreneurs and freelancers in the city and I organise a co-working meet-up. I remember our last in-person event just before the lockdown happened. I don’t think anyone realised just what was coming! After that, we took the meet-ups online like many events and it proved a great way to stay connected and motivated when we weren’t able to meet up in person. I launched my first retreat in October at an amazing venue called Vega House. This was one of my big goals for 2020 and after nearly a year of putting things on hold, I was determined to make it happen.

I have experienced lots of personal and professional shifts this year and it feels like it has been a bit of a baptism of fire. I know I have learned to be more present in how I live. I have become much more conscious of time and not wasting it this year. This has affected my relationships, friendships and priorities as a whole.

I had planned to do more international travel this year and instead found that there was so much more on my doorstep than I had realised to explore and appreciate. Slowing down and living with restrictions has helped me and I am sure others to find joy in unexpected places. I think I am going into 2021 with a renewed sense of optimism around what is possible for me. I am focusing on staying grounded and appreciating the here and now.

Victoria Jane Watson is a business and media mentor working with female entrepreneurs leading the way in the health and wellness industry. She gets to the heart of what makes her clients unique, showing them how to leverage their story and expertise effectively so they can build a personal brand that supports their business goals. www.victoriajanewatson.com   Instagram: @victoriajanewatson

“10 Lessons for Living #LocationFree” is available on all Amazon stores

Search under the title or by using:

Print ISBN: 978-0-620-90868-9

Digital ASIN: B08P7FQ94G

IN SOUTH AFRICA YOU CAN  ALSO GRAB A PAPERBACK ON TAKEALOT.COM

https://www.takealot.com/10-lessons-for-living-locationfree/PLID71293449

  #LocationFree – How are global nomads coping with their wanderlust lifestyle? was originally published on Kate Emmerson - The Quick Shift Deva

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 30 Review: The Executive Meddling Begins?

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 }

{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

{ Screencaps }

Welcome to my Garden of Evil, where today we end one era of the history of Strange Paradise and begin a new one: the period of the “Lost Episode” summaries, when the soap opera’s producers forced headwriter Ian Martin to rewrite much of his original story, discarding many subplots and planned plot twists and negating the original episode synopses that had already been sent to newspapers throughout North America. The known published synopses for this episode are as follows:

"Vangie, the voodoo priestess, uses her conjurer's powers to weaken the evil spell which possesses Jean Paul and to plant the suggestion that she come to his private island."[1]

"A secret potion draws Jean Paul to a voodoo priestess."[2]

According to Curt Ladnier’s blog, this is the first episode known to have been altered after the synopses were sent out, but, before starting this review, I had my doubts. Certainly, comparison between the summaries and the aired episodes show clear evidence of script changes by Episode 32, but there was enough ambiguity in certain events in this episode for me to question if this one was even rewritten in the first place. So, without further ado, let’s run a fine-toothed comb through the aired version of Episode 30 and see if we can find conclusive evidence of rewriting.

The episode begins with Holly being pushed down the staircase in the Great Hall. She screams loudly and Jean Paul and Reverend Matt Dawson come rushing to her aid. While they help her over to the couch, she turns to Matt and accuses him of deliberately pushing her. Jean Paul (who is wearing an unusual but fetching ensemble with a dark blazer and off-white pants) is also suspicious of him, because, according to him, the Reverend was there when she got pushed. Handsome devil Jacques, of course, comments:

An indication that Jacques did it, or just commenting on the situation?

For some reason, Jean Paul doesn’t blame Jacques this time, but instead Matt, who was there (as was Jacques, most likely) and who has the possible motive of revenge for rejecting his romantic advances (not applicable, but Jacques does have the motive of liking murder). Here is the conversation between them and my commentary:

Matt: "Mr. Desmond, I resent your insinuation. Why should I want to harm Holly?" Jean Paul: "Or kill her?" Matt: "You can't be serious." Holly: "Whoever pushed me was." Matt: "But I followed you down here to help you, not to hurt you." Jean Paul: "Or to have her." [Is he implying that he thinks Matt wants to take advantage of her?] Matt: "Are you serious?" Jean Paul: "Your adoration is about as obvious as her pretty face." [And your pretty...everything.]

Matt: *getting pissed at Jean Paul* "I have had about all the insinuations I can take! All right, I do care about her--deeply."

Matt: *to Holly* "Now, can't you believe that I'm the last one who would want to harm you?" Holly: "You're the first, because I don't care for you!"

Jean Paul tells Reverend Stalker to leave Holly alone "or you'll have me to answer to," so the disgruntled padre flounces. But on his way out, he has some accusations of his own:

ROFL at Matt’s delivery of this line.

Matt reveals that he still hasn’t grasped the concept of the detained guest.

So now you believe in demons? What made you change your mind?

The dialogue in this episode so far is heavy with exposition as usual, but it feels different this time. Usually, the exposition takes the form of one character telling another directly about the events and revelations from past episodes, but this time it's structured differently, as a two-way expository dialogue rather than a speech with questions and reactions from the listener. It still doesn't feel entirely natural--it still has the feel of exposition dialogue--but it's a different format.

I should also note that, according to Bryan Gruszka of StrangeParadise.net, the script reveals that neither Matt nor Jacques pushed her. The attacker’s name is a spoiler in spite of the fact that Martin never got to reveal that they were responsible, so I shall link to the Week 6 trivia page here for anyone who is interested.

Jean Paul has a possession headache, but no funny headache faces this time.

Jacques leaves the portrait (which decided to disappear this episode) and mocks Matt for believing in him--which, I should note, is a change from last episode, where the Reverend firmly denied believing in devils and called them superstition. He calls Matt's belief in him "a sad testimony to the belief in which he was schooled"--again, even though Matt actually didn't believe in devils until apparently the beginning of this episode. Already this is a break in continuity, which does not necessarily indicate someone tampering with the established canon, but is suggestive of it nonetheless. Of course, that’s assuming that it isn’t just an error, which it might be. (Remember that Martin can’t decide whether or not Raxl knows Jean Paul is possessed!)

What's with this lighting effect? Did the director decide that Jacques looked too sexy under normal lighting, so they decided to use underlighting to make him look scarier and less hot? Because the effect is not scary. It makes him look like a Muppet, and Muppets are not scary.

Jacques is getting better at impersonating Jean Paul, as evidenced by this deeply ironic part where he comforts Holly. “Have no fear, cherie,” he says, “I will protect you.”

Meanwhile in the Not-So-Hidden Temple, Vangie gives Raxl a bottle of some potion to slip Jean Paul, which she tells her "is not to kill, but to prevent more killing. It is a Conjure brew to free his mind to make it more responsive to mine." This must be what the Lost Episode summaries are referring to! She doesn’t outright state in this scene that she wants Jean Paul to bring her to Maljardin by boat, but she says that’s what she wants in the episode before this one, so anyone who has seen Episode 29 would already know that.

An interesting detail not mentioned on the trivia page: before parting, Vangie asks Raxl, daughter of the Priestess of the Serpent, to pray to her mother.

Vangie teleports/floats back to the main island, which frightens Quito until Raxl assures him that “the Conjure Woman has found her way home.” They leave the temple and begin traveling down the long tunnel back to the crypt. Unbeknownst to them, Reverend Dawson is there, searching the crypt wall for the Not-So-Hidden Door:

Come on, Matt! It’s not at all hard to find!

He finds it and pushes on the door just as Quito starts pulling it open. When Quito grabs him, both of their expressions are priceless:

I can’t decide whose expression is funnier.

“I was not trespassing in your sacred temple, Raxl!” he cries, then insists that he was only down there “to find a means of saving your master.”

“You knew of the temple because I showed you, a man of your-”

“I have not betrayed its sanctity,” he interrupts, even though he was clearly trying to find it so he could search it for the poison. The implication is that, if he visited without Raxl and Quito’s permission, he would betray the temple’s sanctity. He tells her about the missing cyanide, she tells him about the missing conjure doll and silver pin, and then she assures him that neither Jean Paul nor Jacques could have hidden either in the temple because neither know about it.

Up in the Great Hall, THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES is relaxing pompously when Raxl and Quito enter. He orders Quito to prepare to sail to the main island, which leads Raxl to declare, perhaps over-confidently, “The Conjure Woman got to him even without [the potion]!” This negates the second summary which explicitly indicates the potion as the means of “draw[ing] Jean Paul to [Vangie],” but not the first. Also, what makes Raxl think that this is evidence of Vangie’s influence over him? Apparently Jacques choosing to go to the island out of his own free will isn’t a possibility.

Matt asks if he can return to the main island, but Jacques refuses, declaring that “today is a rather special trip for a lady and myself,” referring to his deliciously evil girlfriend Elizabeth Marshall. The Reverend responds by asking if he trusts her not to reveal the secret of Erica’s death, which Jacques uses as yet another opportunity to make Jean Paul look like a murderer by saying, “There is no one dead here--that I don’t pronounce!” And then he threatens him again:

Someone’s on Jacques’ list of people to kill!

We next see Jacques strutting into the French Leave Café wearing a pair of huge round sunglasses over his eyes. Ironically, the demon who is normally so fond of black clothing has changed into Jean Paul’s off-white suit jacket, although he retains the same red shirt and red-and-black striped tie. I’m thinking that Jacques picked out both outfits and changed before heading out because he just felt like playing dress-up that day. Typical 17th-century fop, just with more modern clothes.

Jacques’ new outfit.

Gold-digger Elizabeth clinging to Jacques as though she’s worried that Vangie will try stealing him from her. Makes me wonder what her 17th-century counterpart’s relationship was to Vangie.

What, no joke about how you “still can’t stand the heat?” I’m shocked!

Even on a date in a public place, he tries to make Jean Paul appear interested in committing murder. He asks Elizabeth how much her daughter’s inheritance is, in case she dies, and then gleefully reminds her of her accident earlier that day!

Back on Maljardin, Quito returns from the main island by himself. While Holly is sipping some of Raxl’s tea (in the literal sense only, unfortunately), he walks up to her holding a shiny stone and offers it to her. She takes it only reluctantly, which reminds me of another Lost Episode summary, this one for Episode 33:

Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer (October 24, 1969).

Quito doesn’t show any signs in this episode of being undead, but he does give Holly a sparkling stone, with little reaction from her. Later in this episode (not in the aired version of Episode 33), Holly gives the stone back to Quito despite his insistence that she keep it, which brings him to tears when he is alone with Raxl towards the end. These events suggest a rewrite more strongly than the original summaries at the top of this page do, because the newspaper summary for Episode 33 clearly indicates that these events were originally slated to happen three episodes later, but moved to this one during rewrites.

What about Quito? It certainly appears that Holly’s won Quito’s heart.

Meanwhile at the French Leave Café, Vangie approaches Jacques and Elizabeth and insists on reading their fortunes, although Elizabeth does not want to hear it. She lays the “King of Scepters” (or, rather, the King of Swords--see the screencap at the beginning of this entry) on their table and Jacques freaks out, enough apparently to de-possess Jean Paul:

Hooray! A headache face!

So did Vangie’s Tarot card make Jacques de-possess him? Or was it something else?

At the end of the episode, Jean Paul invites Vangie to Maljardin himself out of a desire to contact Erica. Much like Jacques’ decision to visit the main island earlier this episode, it comes across as something Jean Paul would decide to do of his own accord, without magical influences. Therefore, I think that we can say that Ian Martin’s original idea for Vangie to use her powers to convince him to take her to the island was indeed scrapped--and that was probably a good thing, because this feels more natural.

The episode ends ominously, with Jean Paul willingly putting everyone’s life on the line to contact Erica’s spirit. Not so different from Jacques wanting to kill everyone.

In conclusion, Episode 30 shows distinct signs of having been rewritten since the release of the Lost Episode summaries. Not only did Vangie’s means of allegedly convincing Jacques to visit the main island and Jean Paul’s motivation for bringing Vangie to Maljardin change, but events originally planned for Episode 33 were moved to this one. There are other minor details that, too, suggest a rewrite: the different mode of exposition and Jacques’ lack of devil/Hell jokes where Martin would have likely inserted them just a week ago. The episode feels different from the earlier Week 6 episodes, but not enough to suggest a new writer.

Coming up next: The last Bad Subtitle Special until the end of Week 8, followed by a review of Episode 31. A mysterious force is tampering with the cryonics capsule, while Alison uncovers even more clues to the mysteries surrounding Erica.

{ <- Previous: Episode 29   ||   Next: Episode 31 -> }

Notes

[1] Fitchburg Sentinel, October 24, 1969.

[2] San Mateo Times, October 17, 1969.

[hermitreunited]

I’m so glad you’re on the cute Luther train rn. Did Luther fuck up *a lot* in the series? Absolutely. But one of the things I noticed on a rewatch is that when Luther’s not performing as Number One—when no ones watching (like they “I Think We’re Alone Now”, or when it’s not a situation where he feels pressured to Lead (like when he followed Five into the hostage exchange and let Five take over bc he was so out of his depth), (1/)

or when he feels free to just be himself (like when he’s with Allison (I’m not personally a fan of the romance but I AM a fan of Allison being the sibling he can be himself with))—all those times there’s this side of Luther that just shines out where he’s kind of a goofy, sweet puppy. He reminds me of a golden retriever. The biggest times he fucks up are when he’s trying to be what Reg spent his whole life pressuring him into being—like with Vanya, where he tries to Be the Leader & Like Dad (2/)

I think Tom Hopper did an amazing job showing us the sweet doof Luther would’ve been if he hadn’t been pressured into this role that his temperament and skill set really weren’t suited for, for the most part, all his life. Not to woobify or excuse how often Luther is a legitimate asshole, but like… It’s just Peak Tragedy. (3/)

I wish more fic would explore this idea of the specific emotional, psychological abuse that BROKE Luther, when they show the sibling interactions/fics where they’re all trying to be better. I could write a dissertation on the way UA shows how different KINDS of abuse affected each kid differently and that would include Luther. I kind f just did in your inbox. Sorry! Anyway much love for your nuanced perspectives on this good kids (4/4)

Sorry?!? You are sorry!?!?! THIS IS EXCELLENT THANK YOU OH MY GOSH I am so glad you are conducting the cute Luther train through my askbox rn.

I think so much of this is right on the money, and I’ve been thinking a lot the past day or two about why it is that fandom is so mean to Luther (you were mentioning this the other day I think, @ourhitofsucrose, and it got my gears going so I hope you don’t mind me just tagging you here) and honestly - I don’t think it has a lot to do with the character, who yes, is a lovable doof in his truer moments.

(okay and this might be, like, hot takes or something idk I have not been involved in fandom wars over characters, but.) My take on it is that negative reaction to Luther has more to do with first impressions, namely, first impressions to the Luther/Allison thing, and then just about favorite characters in general.

I never got into reading high fantasy, because I would find a character that I liked, and then might have to wait hundreds of pages about other people before I got back to my fave, and that made me resentful of everyone else. With such a huge ensemble and all the plot going on in this show, I think the same thing happens to viewers here - I know on my first watch I was having a good time, but always chomping at the bit to see what was going on with Klaus. I feel that it is  v e r y  likely that this is a thing for others, with quick favorites like Klaus or Five or taking over the interest of a viewer. If you aren’t the most invested in Luther, you might start to wish his scenes are done quicker because you want to see your fave.

That, coupled with the very strong reactions people have to Luther/Allison, and the fact that a pretty good amount of Luther scenes are ones with Allison, could be an equation that pushes Luther to the bottom of people’s list from the start. It’s not through any fault of his own, necessarily, but then also as the series goes on and he takes actions that harm fan favorites, it’s easy to get entrenched in having him be the butt of fandom jokes.

But he doesn’t deserve it!! Tom Hopper really is so good in the role, you are so right. My top Luther moments have a lot to do with the humor and sweetness he brings to the part. Now, on my.. ..god, maybe-upwards-of-ten-at-this-point?-th rewatch, and after putting in some thought for fic-writing, the love is hitting me full force, and the full tragedy of Luther’s trauma is showing through. But for somebody who hasn’t seen it a stupid number of times, and who hasn’t been thinking specifically about his pov - 

Well, there still shouldn’t be hatred. That’s just a complete lack of understanding. idk, I think my point is that I can maybe reverse engineer why prevailing fandom narrative is that he’s the worst, since initial impressions are what fed the fandom as it is today, but I hope that people will come around the more time that we spend with these characters. All the Hargreeves Kids Deserve Love 2k19!!

I have this meta I’ve been backburner-ing for a while that I cooked up when I was writing excerpts of Vanya’s book for my Klaus and Dave fic. I was thinking specifically about what her worldview seemed to be and how that would effect her read on Klaus, since we pretty much get nothing of them in the show. It expanded into this whole thing though, like at one point I was trying to make graphs or something to chart the defining worldviews of all the characters based on how Reggie raised them to relate to the ideas of success and failure, and I think that really unlocked a ton of sympathy in me for Luther. It’s all headcanon, of course, but it just seems like he’s is so so deeply insecure, and then the body stuff getting added on top of it - the boy is Tragic! Angsty fandom, get over here and deal with all of this sadness!!

Whew, that was a lot of words. Thank you for coming in here with all of your words so we could words together! I want to shout about this show forever, so this was the best gift you can give me 💜💜

[xmagicxshopx]

😈 Secret Admirer 😈 Pt 1

Genre: fantasy adventure, romance, angst Rating: PG-13 Warnings: mild violence, mild language, angst Pairing: Jungkook x reader Notes: demon!jungkook au. Private Investigator Jungkook. Not idol!jungkook. Single quote marks ‘ ‘ are for thoughts and double “ “ are for talking. Additional Notes: Okay so I lied. I’m gonna try to break this up into two parts XD I have not proof read this so be warned!

Summary: All you’ve ever known is struggle. You fight to survive every day and you’re grateful for the little things. But one night, when you make a wish at 11:11pm on the 11th day of the 11th month…….your whole world gets turned upside down.

Pepero Day. Such a beautiful day. Love and kindness everywhere. It really did warm your heart. But for you, it was just another day. Couples were wandering the streets, clinging to each other and living their best lives while you yourself was stuck in the same old rut.

It wasn’t all bad, though. You at least had clothing on your back and a roof over your head. That was more than some people had. The harsh reality was that if you didn’t get more hours, you could very easily lose that roof. You tried not to let that thought linger too long. Life was already hard enough.

Life was hard. You barely made enough money to stay alive. Any clothing you possessed came from shelters. You didn’t own a phone or a car so you mostly either walked to work or used as little money as possible for a bus ride. Most times you had enough money left over to buy some cheap noodle cups but there were those few occasions where you ended up going to local food pantries and trying to cut some kind of deal for food.

You couldn’t remember how you wound up in this kind of predicament. Struggling was all you had ever known. Your family had been poor while you were growing up and both your parents had passed away due to illness that they didn’t have the insurance to cure. No financial stability meant college was out of the question so you felt no choice but to take on as many jobs as you possibly could.

The idea of buying a box of pepero sticks was swimming in your mind but the fighter in you told you it wasn’t a good item to spend your money on. You needed that money for things like rent and electric. Pepero sticks weren’t going to be of any use to you in the dark. So you quickly tossed the idea aside and resumed your journey home.

It was night time and incredibly cold. You had just finished one of your cleaning jobs and was more than ready to head home and maybe get a couple hours nap in before your neck job. Your night job was being a janitor for the local art museum. Naturally, you would always come home smelling like bleach and other cleaning chemicals. It was terrible for your lungs and skin but money was money, right?

The next time you stop at the shelter, you needed to see if they had any coats that perhaps you could purchase. Granted, the staff had become quite familiar with you and would often give you clothing free of charge and you’d take anything, no matter the size or condition it was in. Just like money was money, clothing was clothing. You weren’t exactly in a position to be picky, after all. Hugging yourself to try and warm up even just a little, you kept walking only to hear something to your left.

“Well hello there, sweet thing. You look cold.”

Oh boy.

If you weren’t already cold before, you definitely were now; chilled with fear. Your breathing became uneven and the puffs of clouds coming from your lips said as much. A bulky looking man came from the shadows of an alley that you just happened to be walking past. Great. Just great. However, you put on your best smile and nodded a little.

“Yeah. It’s pretty chilly out. Well, I’ll just be going now---”

“I don’t think so, sweet thing.”

Oh no.

With a scream, you suddenly felt yourself being jerked forward and being reeled in by those strong, bulky arms. This guy was way too strong for you to ward off. Hell, you were almost skin and bones as it was. You could only pray in your mind as he started to drag you down the alley back into the shadows from which he came.

‘No! Please! God, help me! Please! Send someone! Anyone! I’m not ready to die! Not like this!’

Prowling the night life like a black cat, Jungkook made his nightly rounds looking for any kind of new work. Being a private investigator didn’t make him nearly as much money has he would like but he was still able to live comfortably. That was mostly due to his......other job. Walking along the rooftops and jumping from one to the other with grace, a faint scream reached his sensitive ears.

Turning his head in the direction the sound came from, he could clearly see with his bright, demon red eyes the sight below. A man three times the size of the poor female cowering beneath him with her trapped between his two arms. Most times, Jungkook would just shrug and move on. Not his business. But there was something about this girl.......about you.......It was like an itch that he needed to scratch.

And so he did.

Jumping from the rooftop and landing with the same amount of grace as before, he blinked and suddenly reappeared behind the overgrown male. Jungkook was no runt, far from it, really. But this dude was huge. Still, Jungkook’s strength was greater. Grabbing the male from behind, the younger was able to easily lift him off you and flung him to the side only for the bulky body to land in an open dumpster.

You should have ran. The moment you were out from under the male’s arms, you should have made a beeline for the streets and out of the dark depths of the alley. However, you were too frozen with fear. Why? Because your rescuer looked twice as deadly as your captor. Dear lord, maybe you were meant to die in this alley.

“P-Pl-P-Please. I d-don’t ha-av-have anything-ing.”

Despite only being able to see from his nose up, you could tell the hooded figure was a male. He was dressed in almost all black. Save for the white graphic printed on his mask. He appeared to be dressed in a black hoodie with black skinny jeans to match. His hood was up but it appeared that his hair was just as dark. Those eyes.......they weren’t black. They were a bright ruby red.

You looked absolutely pathetic and it intrigued him. His first thought was to steal your soul and trade it for money. Hence his other job. Very few people knew, but Jungkook was a demon. A demon who’s job was to swipe souls and send them to his boss in exchange for money to live here on Earth so that he may continue his work.

But you.....there was just something about you. Something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. There were bags under your eyes and your face looked sunken in; making your wide eyes full of fear pop out even more. The gauntness in your face made you appear a bit bug eyed. Your teeth were a mess and he could tell you rarely took care of them. Your clothing appeared to be three sizes too big for you; practically hanging off of you.

Without a word, he swiped your purse from your shaking hands and he watched you beg; begging for him to give it back. Good lord you really were pitiful. Paying you no mind, he tugged something out of his back pants pocket, a wallet. Fishing around inside the folds, he found a bit of cash and transferred it from his wallet, into your purse. After tucking the thing away back in his pocket and tossing you your purse, he crouched down and spoke softly but in a deem and commanding voice,

“Run along home now, little one. It’s dangerous out here.”

As if in a trance, you did exactly as you were told and ran. You ran as fast as your poor legs could carry you. So much for that nap you were going to take. There was no way in Hades you were going to get to sleep now. Not when all you could see in your mind’s eyes was.......bright, ruby red eyes.

Meanwhile, Jungkook still got a soul. A soul fitting for his boss. The bulky male from the dumpster wouldn’t be assaulting anyone anytime soon. With his job done and payment received, the young male left the alley as if nothing had ever happened; resuming his nightly patrol of the city streets.

Freezing. You were absolutely freezing. Your shoes that were nearly falling apart didn’t help matters and your clothing was so baggy that air was easily flowing up under your sweatshirt and up through the sleeves.

But you weren’t going to complain because the shelter was kind enough to give these clothes to you and it was the only size they had. You were grateful for what little you had because you could be stuck with nothing at all. At least you had a roof over your head and clothing on your back. Said roof leaks but still. You were grateful.

Now you found yourself waiting in line in a cheap convenience store to buy even cheaper coffee. Warmth and caffeine. Those were the two things you needed most right now. If the heavy bags under your eyes were anything to go by, it was more than obvious that you got little to no sleep or rest. With all the side jobs you worked, sleep wasn’t much of an option most of the time.

Not only was it clear that you got little sleep, but it was also more than evident that you were malnourished. Your collarbones stuck out like sore thumbs as the collar of your sweatshirt hung low from the large size on your skinny body. Honestly you probably looked homeless.

Underneath all that garbage, you were a good person. A really good person. You paid your bills and your rent on time every month. A smile was always on your face despite your heavy misfortune. Your soul was pure despite the horrible hand the world had dealt you.

Dark eyes watched you from down one of the aisles full of convenient snacks. A young man wearing a ball cap. He appeared to be investigating a bag of chips but really his eyes were on you and your sad, pitiful form. He could see the money in your hand and was pleased to see you using it for it was he himself who had handed it to you just last night.

Lucky for Jungkook, he didn’t have any current cases to work on. This gave him all the time in the world to watch you. Why? Because you fascinated him beyond comprehension. You weren’t like the other mortals here in town. No. You were special.

You were going to be his next big case.

Then you were walking out the door with cheap coffee in hand. Cursing himself for getting distracted, he quickly tossed the chips back in their place and made a dash for the door. Walking back out onto the streets, he tried to find you. Tried to sniff you out; quite literally. You had smelled like you bathed in bleach and not everyone smelled like that. Getting a whiff of cleaning chemicals, he was able to spot your pity poor form just up ahead to his right.

You were much easier to spot now that he knew where to look. Everyone else was sporting shiny, healthy hair while yours looked like colored straw. It was.....sad? Was that this feeling that was making his chest feel tight? Nah. Couldn’t be. Jungkook the demon didn’t know how to feel sad. It wasn’t in his vocabulary. Nah. He just really really pitied you was all. That’s all it was.......Right?

Regardless, he followed. With the help of his colored contacts, the male blended in just fine among all the mortals of the city. Yep. He was just another citizen walking the streets of the early morning heading to work. Dark eyes watched as you sipped from your coffee and hugged yourself tighter. You needed a coat, for goodness sake. Did you seriously not own one???

After walking for what felt like hours but was really only about 20 minutes, Jungkook watched you approach what appeared to be a diner of sorts. Hmmm. Perhaps you bused tables there? The demon stood there on the corner debating on whether or not he should step inside. On one hand, he might get lucky and you’d be his waitress. On the other hand, he’d risk you recognizing him by either the upper half of his face or by his voice.

Softly cursing under his breath, he decided to wait it out. It wasn’t like he had anything else better to do. As much as he wanted to venture in and take a look around to see what exactly you were doing there, he didn’t want to risk getting caught. So many things could go wrong there. So many things. Besides, maybe you were just grabbing a bite to eat? But he highly doubted it.

With a heavy sigh, you made your way to the back of the diner where all the employees were kept hidden by a swinging door and put on your apron. A dishwasher, that’s what you were. Due to your hands already being a mess as a janitor, you tried to salvage what skin you had left and put on some thick, long rubber gloves and dove right in. It would appear whoever had been in charge of closing last night.....conveniently forgot to do the dishes.

Alas, it was job security and that’s how you were going to look at it. Secured job equaled secure money in your mind. With that positive thinking in mind, you felt your lips take on the form of a small smile and began cleaning. Life was hard but it was also okay.

While you worked, you couldn’t help but think of the man with the bright red eyes from the night before. Who was he? What was he? Perhaps he was just a guy who had a thing for colored contacts? But they seemed awfully bright. Very vivid, even. His voice. Even just thinking about it had you shiver a bit. It had been so deep and....commanding. And yet....Soothing. Did that make sense?

“I need two plates and two bowls A-SAP!”

During his job as a private investigator, Jungkook had lived his fair share of steak outs. But this was nuts. After a couple of hours, it was clear that you definitely hadn’t gone into the diner seeking food. Any time he’d pass by the windows to see if you were serving tables, you were no where in sight. In fact, there was a moment where he wondered if maybe you had slipped through his fingers and he toyed with the idea of trying to follow your scent.

Then, around lunch time, you came out. Ugh. Finally! Staying out of sight and blending in with the crowd, he watched you walk back towards the convenience store you had visited earlier that morning to grab your coffee. Hmm. How could a mere mortal pique his interest like this? Part of him felt silly, honestly. As if he were a dog looking for a new master. Let’s get one thing straight......The only master around here was Jeon Jungkook.

Following you back into the convenience store, he watched you walk down one of the aisles till you stopped at the section containing cupped noodles. The cheapest food in this city and probably just as unhealthy. Seriously, with how thin you looked, how were you even still alive at this point??? Jungkook took to busying himself in the next aisle over but made sure to keep your scent within his reach.

Turns out you bought a bowl of noodles and a bottle of water and was already back at the register. He once again noticed you using some of the money he had given to you last night. You were a strange girl......That’s for sure. Strange and yet extremely interesting. A force that reeled him in. Hook, line, and sinker. Perhaps he was more of a fish than a dog.

You waited in line patiently till it was your turn and smiled politely at the cashier. Handing them your items for purchase, you were a little less stressed when you handed over the funds necessary for payment. Red eyes popped in your head again and you couldn’t help wondering if you’d ever meet again. A menacing figure but expressed kindness through his actions. It made no sense to you.

Walking out of the convenience store, you started making your way towards your next job. The plan was to head straight for the break room so that you could eat your lunch and begin work. You had roughly an hour to get there and eat before your shift started. Hopefully you could make it there on foot.

Jungkook followed you like a shadow as he watched you leave the store once more. Good lord did you ever slow down? How were you this fast when you looked like a breeze could blow you away? His expression was hard as he thought about little things like this. But the bigger question was......Why did he care? You were just a silly little mortal who’s soul he could snatch up any time he wanted.

“Little human.....what are you doing to me?”

Thankfully you didn’t have to spend money on a bus ride to your next job and you still had just enough time to gulp down your lunch. Of course it probably wasn’t a good idea to inhale your food like that but time was short and you needed every minute of work you could get. Getting fired for tardiness wasn’t an option for you.

Your next job appeared to be at a retail store for women’s clothing. The over pricey kind. Jungkook walked in and looked around. Thankfully he could always use the excuse that he was buying a gift for his non-existent sister or something. Of course you were nowhere to be found. That is.....till he could catch a whiff of your scent. That familiar smell of cleaning chemicals. Gosh didn’t you ever get a headache from that junk?

He could tell you were somewhere in the back and his eyes kept darting towards the door that surely would lead him to you. However, how was he going to sneak in there without the girls at the front register noticing? Speaking of......he couldn’t help but overhear their conversation.

“She always comes in smelling like a janitor’s closet. How did she even get hired?”

“Girl, I don’t know but it gives me a headache every time I have to walk by her. I don’t know how she stands it. And honestly it’s just rude. Does she even shower?”

“Probably not. Have you seen her? She looks ugly as hell. Good thing she stays in the back. We can’t have customers complaining about the smell and the ugliness.”

For some reason, this set the boy off. His normal looking teeth turning razor sharp and grinding against each other. A soft growl rumbled in the back of his throat. Such foolish mortals. If it wasn’t for the cameras and a few customers already roaming the racks of expensive cloth, Jungkook would have sold their souls instantly without batting an eye.

Eyeing the door once more, he decided to work a little magic. Black magic. He just needed enough time to put on a fake employee getup and walk through the door. With his eyes on the various security cameras, he made a quick move and everything happened like clockwork. The cameras temporarily stopped working and he froze everyone in the room.

Quickly changing his attire to one of a young man working in a retail store, he blended in perfectly with his fitted t-shirt and skinny ripped jeans. He had to ditch the ball cap but it was a small price to pay. Making sure he had his colored contacts in, Jungkook quickly approached the door and with a simple wave of his hand, the cameras started working again and everyone was unfrozen. Simple as that.

You were currently struggling to carry a particularly heavy box full of denim jeans when you could have sworn you heard the door open. Paying it no mind, you continued to carry the box to it’s rightful destination but once it was out of your hands, you fell to the floor panting for air. Perhaps you shouldn’t have eaten that bowl of noodles so fast. You felt like you were gonna get sick.

Jungkook did what he did best and hid in the shadows as he watched you. For a split second, he though you were going to pass out. Why did that thought bother him so much? He told himself it was simply because he wanted to know more about you and couldn’t afford you losing consciousness but he had a feeling it was something else entirely.

And then you really did pass out.

“Shit----”

Springing into action, he quickly crouched down in front of you and turned you over onto your back as you had slumped over onto your side. You looked dead, honestly. His hand finding your wrist, he searched for a pulse. It was there but it could have been stronger. A lot stronger. Looking around while still feeling your pulse, he noticed what task you had been given. There was no way you could carry these boxes with what little energy and strength you possessed.

“Hey---Come on now. Time to wake up. Come on. Open your eyes.”

The demon was starting to get genuinely nervous when you didn’t stir and he couldn’t help but notice how ragged your breathing had become. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. This wasn’t good. He still had so much he wanted to learn about you. He didn’t even know where you lived yet.

And then......a soft moan of pain graced his ears and he couldn’t have been happier.

You were alive.

“Hey----Easy now. Just relax.”

There was a voice. A male’s voice. It sounded oddly familiar but you didn’t know why. Your head was pounding and you felt like you could puke. It even hurt for your eyebrows to knit together. With your sore eyes still closed, you felt yourself being lifted up into a semi sitting position only to feel something circular and plastic being pressed against your slightly parted lips. With an unknown hand cradling your skull, your head was helped tipped back and felt cool water running down your throat. Water. Someone was helping you drink water.

“Good girl. Now just sit and breathe with me for a moment.”

There the voice was again. He sounded really sweet and gentle. Oh how you’d love to just take a nap. That sounded really nice. But you had......work! Eyes shooting open and your body moving into an upright position, you looked around frantically. You were still in the inventory room of the retail store. But----What happened?!

“Whoa whoa. Hey! Easy there. Easy or you’ll pass out again.”

Your head swung in the direction of the voice and almost lost it when you grew dizzy. Briefly closing your eyes to will the swaying away, you slowly opened your eyes once more and looked over at the owner of the voice who had sounded so sweet and kind.

A male. A young one. Judging from the lanyard and laminated ID hung around his neck, he was an employee just like you. Was he new? You couldn’t recall seeing him before. Blinking in utter confusion, you watched him sport a small, shy smile. He must have recognized the confusion in your eyes because he spoke up again once more.

“I think you passed out. I came in for my shift but when I did, I found you on the floor. Are you okay?”

Not wanting to risk being recognized, Jungkook forced his voice an octave higher and tried to sound more boyish. Being a private investigator and a demon, the trick of controlling his voice often times came in handy. For the first time ever, he saw color coating your face in the form of a blush. Dare he admit it, but it was actually kind of cute. He tended to have that affect on women.

“I um......Oh gosh I’m so sorry. How embarrassing. I’m okay, really. I’m sorry you had to walk in on that.”

Gosh you were adorable. A total contrast to how you were cowering in fear and begging him for mercy the night before. You really were a pure soul. He could feel it in his bones. Your soul was pure and untainted by sin. A soul that his boss would love to have. However.......Jungkook wasn’t done with you yet. This case was just getting started.

“No need to feel embarrassed. Are you okay, though? Here---Sip on the water a bit more before getting back to it. I’ll take care of the heavier boxes and you take the lighter ones, okay?”

“O--Oh--Okay.”

The demon had to bite back the ‘good girl’ that was on the tip of his tongue as he didn’t want to give himself away. Not when he was so close to you and having this golden opportunity to learn more about you. Speaking of which, as he worked, he couldn’t help but ask,

“So how long have you been working here? I just started.”

“Oh um......I’ve been here for a couple months, now. I’m just working in inventory, though. I don’t venture out on the floor. Which I’m okay with.”

He simply nodded as he took care of the heavy boxes with ease. You’d occasionally tell him where they needed to go before you eventually stood up and he could tell you were testing the waters; making sure you wouldn’t fall over again. Gosh there was a slew of questions he had for you but how could he possibly ask them without seeming like a creep?

“You look a bit tired. Are you under the weather? You can always call in sick if you’re not feeling well, you know. That’s what sick time is for.”

This young man was strange. Well.....not strange just......He made you curious. You knew better than to try and deny that you were tired. Long ago had you not bothered trying to hide the bags under your eyes. What was the point? Makeup was just a waste of money in your opinion. Smiling your best to reassure him, you shook your head slowly and replied a bit timidly,

“Nah. I’m okay. Really. I wouldn’t want to appear lazy or anything. I enjoy this job and I don’t want to risk losing it.”

You worked too hard. That was his first self-drawn conclusion. You were working yourself to death. But what for? Perhaps you had a family to support? He had known a few mortals to work as a means to provide for their families. But this.....this seemed different. Despite the exhaustion all over your face, your eyes sparkled with a light that Jungkook had never witnessed before.

Oh how you intrigued him.

The two of you worked for another three hours and in that span of time, the demon boy learned a lot about you. Turns out you had no family, you were on the border of becoming homeless, hence why you needed this job so much. Your apartment building was on the more shadier side of town. You didn’t own a phone or a car. It was almost unbelievable, really. Like Jungkook wanted to call you a liar but he could tell from the sound of your voice that you were telling the sad sad truth.

And then......the words just came flying out of his mouth.

“Let me treat you to dinner.”

‘What the hell, Kook?!’

As he was cursing himself for such a sudden and ridiculous impulse, you simply stared at him with shock and confusion. Watching him clear his throat as he seemed to be composing himself while putting away another box, he finally turned to you and elaborated a little. For the both of you.

“You helped me a lot on my first day here. You didn’t have to do that. So I’d like to repay you by treating you to dinner.”

When you flashed him a smile, he thought that perhaps you’d really take him up on his offer. Why did he even want to take you to dinner in the first place? You were a mortal and he was a demon. You were light and he was dark. The two of you had no business associating with each other and yet here he was latching onto you like a leech.

“That’s very sweet of you, but I couldn’t accept such a kind offer. I know food isn’t cheap around here. I wouldn’t want you spending your hard earned money on me like that.”

Well dang. He didn’t see that one coming.

Standing there in a bit of a stunned stupor, he watched you bite your bottom lip and kindly excused yourself with a hint of nervousness in your voice. You muttered something about your shift being over and how you really needed to get going or you’d miss the bus stop to your next job.

Your next job.......

Just how many jobs did you have???

Jungkook left the inventory room the same way he walked in, but not without messing with the snooty girls at the front register. He tied the one girl’s shoelaces together and he tangled the other girl’s lanyard into the cash drawer. That would teach them talking bad about his mortal.

Turns out your next job was an art museum. You were a janitor there. That would explain the chemicals and bleach that seemed to be carved into your pores. How had he found out this information? Simple, he followed you. Now he was dressed as a young businessman interested in buying a piece of art when really his only interest was you.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could spot you mopping the floors. Gosh even your janitor’s outfit was large on you. But not nearly as baggy as your casual clothing from earlier. But it also showcased just how unhealthily skinny you were. Part of the demon wondered if you were suffering from anorexia. He wouldn’t rule out the possibility.

“So, sir, what piece were you interested in purchasing today?”

That night, he followed you home. Wearing the same black attire he sported the night before. Normally he’d be patrolling the town for any unsuspecting souls to trade but tonight......his sole focus was making sure you got home safely. Gracefully jumping and hopping from rooftop to rooftop, he watched you like the demon he was. Red eyes piercing into the back of your skull.

You had the funny feeling someone was watching you and it only made your feet move faster. After last night, you really didn’t want a repeat of it. Then again....maybe that meant you’d get to see him again. The male with the bright red eyes. Shivering when a cold went came through, you shook your head to clear the thoughts and tried to walk a little bit faster.

Finally making it into your apartment, you barely made it to your bedroom before you collapsed on the bed; out like a light.

Meanwhile, just across the street, perched on the roof, was Jungkook. Gently tugging down his mask so that all of his face could be seen, he stared intently at your window before speaking softly,

“Found you, little human.”

From the looks of it, you had officially left for the day. Probably off on one of your many jobs you held. Seriously, just how many freaking jobs did you have??? From what he gathered of the human race, the max jobs a mortal held was around two, maybe three at the most. But with you…..it seemed to be more than that. Way more.

Jungkook knew he had the right apartment number because your unique scent was practically rolling out from under the door and he was surprised to smell something there mixed in with the familiar smell of cleaning chemicals.

Now it was time for a little magic. Black magic, that is. Smirking while cracking his knuckles, he stared down your door as if trying to size it up. Yeah. Okay. So the guy was a bit full of himself. He was a smoking hot demon, after all.

With a flick of his wrist, he felt the magic flow down his arm and to the tips of his fingers. However, he never heard the click of the lock. Hmm…..That was odd. Eyebrows knitting together in confusion, the demon tried once again and flicked his wrist this time with a little more pep. Still nothing. Growling lowly in mild irritation, he ran a quick magical diagnostic on the wooden thing but came up with nothing. No protection spells or anything.

“What the hell, Door? Open already!”

Try as he might, spell after spell, the poor boy couldn’t get the blasted door to unlock. Grumbling, he eventually said screw it and tried the old fashioned way…..Turning the doorknob.

“Whoa!”

Having expected the need to use force, he shoved his full body weight against the door and ended up plummeting into your apartment. There Jungkook laid on your floor for a couple moments before realizing what the hell happened. Turning over onto his back to investigate, he saw the source of his embarrassment.

Your door was never locked in the first place. He could see the latch hanging by a thread.

Well that explains it.

Picking himself up off the floor and dusting himself off, he took a look around. Wow. You lived here? How? How on Earth did you actually live here? The freaking ceiling was leaking! He stood there watching rust colored water seeping from the sunken ceiling and falling into a plastic bucket which was nearly half full.

The place was tiny as well. He could see a small kitchen with a living room all in one open floor plan. You had a recliner and that was it. No couch or tv. The lack of technology astounded him. You didn’t even have a washer or dryer which meant you must use a laundry mat. Deciding to venture further, he walked down a narrow hallway.

He found your bedroom and your bathroom which was across from each other. Your bedroom was so tiny. Was that a twin size bed??? Looking around, he noticed you had nothing but the basics. You didn’t even have a desk or a lamp. You just had the bare minimum. Although he noticed a picture frame containing who he could only guess were your parents. Funny......You looked so much like your dad....Only prettier.

Looking into your bathroom, he noticed the lack of a hair dryer. Frowning, he instantly thought about you possibly going out into the chilly November air with a wet head. You could catch illness doing that. Foolish little human. Pulling the curtain to the side, he noticed you had only two bottles perched on the rounded edge. A bottle of cheap shampoo and just as cheap body wash. No wonder it did so little for your hair and skin. He recognized those brands. They were practically all water.

He needed to do something. This was......too much. He needed to get out of here before he did something rash. What was this painful feeling in his chest and why was it making it hard for him to breathe? Jungkook couldn’t understand it. He had never felt this way during a case. You.......You were doing this to him. Perhaps you yourself was a demon? A wolf in sheep’s clothing. A wolf after his black heart.

[thirteen-beaxhes]

Our Last Words - Chapter 5

Summary:  In a universe where the last words your soulmate speaks to you are printed, Cyrus Goodman wants nothing more than to never meet them. And he definitely doesn’t want it to be the blonde-haired boy in his class.

ALL LINKS IN REBLOG

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Mystery of Love - Sufjan Stevens

It was starting to become stupid, obsessive even.

Cyrus had to slightly modify his regular routine to account for his new behaviour. Earlier, he would wait for TJ at the gates after school from where they would either head to the Spoon with the rest of the group, or on days when TJ had work, Cyrus would accompany him to the gym and stay till his shift ended. Now, as soon as the bell rang for the end of the day, Cyrus would gather his things with lightning speed and rush home, steering clear of TJ’s locker, unless he ran into him on the way. On those occasions, they would walk in awkward silence till the gate. TJ at first would desperately try to make conversation, but eventually just stopped trying. Cyrus would use any momentary distraction to turn in the other direction and walk away. It still took every ounce of willpower to not look back at him.

On those rare occasions when they did meet before Cyrus could make his escape, the unsaid words between them settled uneasily as if both of them wished to reach out and say something, but for some reason, none could find the right words.

Finally, one day, TJ couldn’t handle it anymore. As soon as the bell rang, he ran to Cyrus’ locker and grabbed him by the elbow, startling Cyrus out of his thoughts.

“Can we please talk?” he asked, his voice shaky. He wasn’t looking Cyrus in the eye, afraid of seeing hatred, or worse, apathy in them.

Cyrus forced himself to look up from his shoes at TJ. Instantly, he noticed the difference in his demeanour. Where earlier there was a snarky confident boy, was now one who’s form screamed worry and hesitation. And sadness. And Cyrus was probably the reason. Sighing, knowing he couldn’t run forever (though he tried damn hard), he simply nodded.

They walked down to the swings, but neither of them sat down. They stood around, the silence between them getting louder and louder. Cyrus shifted his weight from foot to foot, unsure of what to say. But before he could find something, TJ spoke up.

“Look, Cyrus. I’m sorry, okay?” he said, his eyes trained to the ground.

Cyrus looked at him in confusion. Well that was unexpected. “Sorry for what?”

“At your house. For almost kissing you. It was in the heat of the moment, and I know I shouldn’t have done anything. But, I just didn’t think of what would happen after. And now look. I pushed our friendship too far. And I’ve ruined it, haven’t I? You can’t even bear to talk to me anymore. Like I said, classic TJ. Anything good I gotta ruin it.”

TJ’s voice seemed shaky, as if he was desperately trying to hold in tears. Cyrus wanted to say something, but he just stood there transfixed.

“I know you probably hate me. Which sucks, because I like you. God, I like you so much, Cyrus and you have no clue. I’ve liked you since the time I heard you sing that adorable song right here at these swings. You’re one of the most important people in my life. And now I’ve blown it.”

With that, TJ turned to leave, wiping away some stray tears. But as he started to walk away, he heard Cyrus say something.

“TJ.” It was soft, barely louder than a whisper.

Cyrus steadied his breath walking up to the other boy, turning him so that they faced each other. TJ still kept his gaze trained to the ground, still avoiding Cyrus’ eyes so Cyrus just grabbed his face and made him look at him.

TJ looked so scared and small, like he was too scared and ashamed to look Cyrus in the eye. The only other time he had ever seen him look like that was when Cyrus was walking away from him and his friends after Reed pulled out a gun. He hated when TJ looked like that, he didn’t deserve it.

Cyrus looked up at TJ and said softly, “I don’t hate you, TJ. How could I? I just, I can’t believe it. It’s never really happened before.”

TJ furrowed his eyebrows. “What has never happened before?”

Cyrus gave him a small smile. “That I guy I like has liked me back.”

It took him a few seconds to completely register what Cyrus had just said, but when he did TJ eyes widened, making Cyrus giggle.

“You, I, what?”

Cyrus, wrapped his hands around TJ’s neck, a smile on his face. “I like you too, TJ.”

As he said those words, TJ’s face lit up in a smile brighter than the sun in summer. He chuckled, wrapping his hands around Cyrus’ waist, pulling him closer into a hug.

“Well, you could have given a guy a warning! I spent all this time thinking you hated me!”

“I’m sorry. I was just going through something. But I’m here now.”

“I’m glad you are.”

They smiled, completely content in that moment. After some time, they sat down on the swings, neither really swinging, but just swaying, occasionally sneaking glances at each other. In the middle, their pinkies were linked together.

“So, what was it, Underdog?” TJ asked, breaking the now-comfortable silence.

“What was what, Teej?”

“What made you fall for me? Was it my handsome face or my impeccable athletic abilities?”

“Well, it definitely wasn’t your taste in fashion.”

“Ouch,” TJ said, miming the impact of a bullet. “You wound me, Muffin.”

“Muffin, huh?” Cyrus teased, his voice light and playful.

“Yeah, seemed appropriate. Wow, I have so many great nicknames for you. How many do you have?”

“Well, I’ll have you know,” Cyrus started, glancing down at his watch. He froze.

5:59.

No no no no.

“Um, hey, on second thoughts, can I do a raincheck? It’s just, I have to go. Homework. Errands. I uh, just have to go,” Cyrus said, fumbling over his words as he attempted to gather his things in a hurry.

“Wait, Cyrus,” TJ tried to say, in an attempt to catch hold of Cyrus’ hand. But Cyrus was surprisingly fast, running in the direction of his house at record speed. Wow, Coach would be proud.

That was close.

*

Cyrus spent a good half an hour recovering from his impromptu sprint from the park. His body was not built for exercise, and it made no qualms in reminding him of that fact. After the room stopped spinning and his stomach no longer felt like an underground rave, he reached for his phone to see texts from TJ.

Teej: hey, u ok?

Teej: im kinda worried cy

Teej: call?

Cyrus hesitated a bit before he pressed the ‘Call’ button, unsure of how he was going to explain himself to the other boy. But he reassured himself. TJ would understand if you didn’t want to say anything. Of course he would.

“Hey,” TJ picked up, his voice laced with concern.

“Hey, Teej. Sorry for ‘Cinderella-ing’ it out of there. I just remembered that I had, uh a thing that I needed to help my mom with. I’m really sorry, I was just worried about being late” Cyrus explained, trying his best to seem convincing.

TJ laughed at his description of how he left, instantly lifting Cyrus’ mood. “It’s okay, Underdog. You seem busy around 6-ish anyway these days. Don’t worry, I have work around 5:45 now, so we can hang out at other times, okay?”

Cyrus smiled to himself, knowing exactly what was happening. TJ knew there was something going on, but he wasn’t pushing. He never did, if Cyrus made it clear he didn’t want to talk about it just then. He was making adjustments, understanding what Cyrus needed without him having to even say a word about it. God, he liked that doof so much. Damn.

“Thank you, TJ.”

“Hey, no need for that.”

They sat in silence again, a common but not unwelcome occurrence. Until TJ broke it.

“Hey, Muffin?”

That new nickname still caught Cyrus by surprise, making his heart skip ten beats. “Yeah?”

“You can tell me anything, okay? But if you don’t want to, I’ll still like you, okay?”

“Okay,” Cyrus said, imagining the other boy also lying in bed, probably playing with that stupid toy basketball of his that he still kept from 5th Grade.

“Sooooo,” TJ said, his voice taking a flirty tone.

“Yes?” Cyrus replied, his voice equally teasing.

“Does this mean that you, the one and only Cyrus Goodman, would do me the honour of gracing me with a date?”

“It certainly does.”

~~~~

Why did i hate this lol i’m sorry if it isn’t as good i’ve been getting headaches all day today sorryyy

[maskydoo-old]

Nightmare Neighbors 4

(I’m writing out scripts for upcoming storytime style youtube videos, and posting what I have here. Note that this is a true story. Feedback is welcome.)

Up to a point, I tried to give my neighbors, Loony and Toony Feckwad, the benefit of the doubt.

Sure, they were definitely acting like weirdos, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re up to no good.

Maybe they were just really, unfathomably socially inept and genuinely did not realize how inappropriate they were being.

Maybe they’re just having a few bad days, and I was only seeing them at their worst.  

Maybe they’re just plain weird people, but… ehhhh…. probably harmless.

Maybe my increasing suspicion of them had more to do with my own stress than anything else?

I was gas-lighting the shit out of myself. I was looking for ways to rationalize their antics, doubting my own perceptions and creeping unease.

I just didn’t want to believe that these people could really be out to get me and for no reason at all as I’ve done anything at all to them. I want the world to make sense. I wanted to believe people are rational, reasonable. And this just didn’t fit.

I was just too patient, too willing to be understanding, and too forgiving to see the situation for what it was. You might think that’s giving myself a compliment. It isn’t. It makes an easy target.

Doubting your intuition, ignoring warning signs, and denying your own situation helps the aggressors. Bullies rely on the politeness and meekness of their targets in order to get away with abuse.  

But in the end, even I could only gaslight myself for so long. Eventually, their insanity and increasing hostility got to be undeniable.

Right out of the harassing neighbors handbook, the people I’m referring to as Loony and Toony Farkwad started wasting police time with made-up noise complaints.

Now, I won’t pretend my dogs never bark, but when they do, I bring them inside. Duh.  

And in the middle of the day, among all the cars, construction, lawnmowers, and playing kids, what’s a few barks anyway? It’s not like she’s out there at some unreasonable hour, like, oh, say, 3 am.

And it’s not like mine are the only dogs in the neighborhood. There actually were a few nuisance barkers around, dogs who were left outside prettymuch 24/7, and would not be brought in no matter how much or how lard they barked and barked and barked.

Those poor doggy lungs.

Don’t. Don’t do this. It’s not OK to treat your dogs like this. If you’re not going to take proper care of your dog, if you’re just going to leave it alone outside all of its short life, don’t get a dog.

Get a houseplant. A fake one.

I assumed the neighbors just mistook one of the other barking dogs for mine. I know my own dog’s voice but there’s no reason to expect other people would. Honest mistake.

Then I got to talking with one of the other neighbors across the street. Turned out, his family had their own run-ins with the Feckwads before I moved in.

His wife even caught Loony looking over this neighbor’s fence, yelling his dog and kicking the fence boards to provoke the dog to bark as much as possible, then recording the dog’s freak-out with her phone.

Yes. Loony went to these peoples’ house, across the street, all so she could report the barking that she intentionally caused.

It wasn’t a matter of making any mistake. The Feckwads were just making bogus reports on purpose.

Why? What do they stand to gain from this? How do these people not have anything better to do?!

So there I was with animal control showing up at my door to give me warnings.

Weird that this only happens during periods when I live alone, and not when my boyfriend is home from his job overseas, even though the dogs were exactly the same.

One morning, and by morning I mean nearly 7AM, you know, when, noise ordinances end, road works begin, kids head to school, adults go to work, and prettymuch everyone is generally awake, I put my dogs outside for a few minutes, just long enough to change into my uniform.

I was just about to bring them in anyway when one of my dogs barked. Once.

Bark.

There was one, single bark.

“Molly, Shadow.”

“Shut those F-ing dogs up!!”

This guy. This freaking guy.

Tick seriously stuck his head right out his bedroom window, which overlooked my yard and the back door, and was just screaming his head off.

What. What does it look like I’m doing? I was clearly bringing my dogs inside already.

Literally the only reason he’s even able to yell at me at all was because I just opened up the door to do the exact thing he was demanding.

Even after my dogs were in the house. He was still screaming. Why? To accomplish what, exactly?

“BLAH BLAH BLAH ALL THE BARKING AT THIS UNGODLY HOUR!!!”

Oh. Oh OK. I guess 7 is an ungodly hour for a dog to bark, but 3AM, that’s just a perfect time to be creeping around ambushing women alone in the dark.

And here he is, hollering. If he hadn’t come to the window to yell, he could have quiet by now, we all could. He was being louder now than my dogs ever were.

Tch! Whatever. I had enough.

Me: “Is this how adults behave?”

(slam door)

This is when I started going outside with my dogs whenever they were in the yard, recording the whole while, making sure they didn’t make a peep, and being ready to prove it. I’d also be able to record Toony if he acted up like that again.

You’d think that now that it was certain that that my dogs weren’t a problem, the Feckwads would have nothing to be mad about. Their complaint is solved.

But that would be assuming these were reasonable people, and that their grievance was ever honest in the first place. Instead, the aggression only increased.

Loony and Toony saw that their bogus complaints, while annoying, weren’t actually getting me in any kind of trouble since they couldn’t prove anything. I didn’t give them the opportunity to create evidence like Loony did with the neighbor across the street.

So they moved on to new plans.

I felt like I was being watched whenever I was outside. I’d hear muffled voices, and shifting blinds from their windows.

Then, Loony started trying to catch me whenever I was outside. Day, night, whenever, didn’t matter.

I’d step outside, maybe to take out my trash or something, then – ope - here comes Loony. She’d stomp my way, right to my property, with body language like she’s looking for a fight.

Nope. Not dealing with this. Whatever she has planned, it’s clearly not an apology. So… I’m out.

(abandon trash, slam door.)

I started going outside less.

Again, it was only me, a 4’11 woman they ever have any words for. They never have anything to say with my 6’3, muscle-bound boyfriend around.

Another day, Luna spied me through her window, then came right out and did thing where she’d stomp my way like a mad cow charging, yet again.

But this time, I didn’t move.

She was nearly to me when (Surprise motha-f!* ) OOPS! Miss something sweetheart? My boyfriend only just got back from oversees, and they hadn’t noticed yet. Now there he was, sitting in the car parked next to me, watching.  

Luna stopped dead in her tracks! I could see the wheels spinning while she considered her options. She pulled a hard turn and pretended she was out there to check her mailbox.

Oh, just taking the scenic route were ya, hun? Yeah. I’m sure.

Now why would she do that? If she had any good intentions, if she was just there to talk to me, or to make some reasonable neighborly complaint, then why would she suddenly abandon her course? She wouldn’t. She backed off immediately because she was up to no good, but suddenly realized I was not as vulnerable as she thought.

I wonder if they thought my boyfriend and I broke up, that he was gone for good and I would remain alone. They sure minded themselves when he returned.

As long as they knew my boyfriend was around, the neighbors kept their heads down. No screaming at me. No stomping at me. No ambushing me in the dark. No bogus noise complaints. No making a peep at all. Nothing.

But that couldn’t last long. Soon, boyfriend had to leave the country again. And as unreasonable as these people were, they still possessed basic pattern recognition.

They waited for a few weeks to make sure he was gone, then they’d get back up with their antics. And on every event, they’d escalate, getting crazier and crazier.

One night, when I got home from work, they were waiting for me. Yes, again. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen them lurking in the darkut this night the crazy jumped to a new level.

“My neighbor Maskydoo McSurname at 8802 Illusion Drive is a ------ -------- --------- --------!”

Toony was outside, in the dark somewhere I couldn’t see, shouting my full name and address (why my address?,) followed by calling me a long string of vulgar and misogynist insults.

By now, the neighbors screaming all the insults they could whenever they saw me wasn’t even new. They’ve done that plenty enough it hardly got my attention.

What was new was the how.

Toony was shouting about me in third person, as if he was talking to someone else about me.

It was like what little bratty kids do when someone they don’t like is around. They suddenly turn to their friend and start loudly trash talking that person as if they weren’t aware that person was there but it’s totally fake?

It was like that. It would be pathetically sad if it weren’t so disturbing. What adult does this?

As dark as it was, I wasn’t even sure if there was even anyone actually there with him, or if he was out there alone pretending. I’m not sure which would be creepier.

I wonder if he figured it would be some kind of legal loophole, harassing me like this, claiming he wasn’t actually yelling at me… just about me.

He wasn’t even pretending to have some kind of grievance anymore. Couldn’t be bothered to make anything up.

It was just a series of loudly yelled insults.

I didn’t say anything. I was honestly too shocked to. I just spent a minute questioning everything.

What? What?! I mean - What?! Is this guy serious? He can NOT be serious. Who does this? How is this a thing that anyone does? Is this how adults behave? I. What? Is this real life?

I’ve moved in next to a Youtube comments section.

Among other things, I’m a C word, a B word, and F-ing C word and B word. Typical generic insults.

But he did get a little more original. I’m rancid, disgusting, Heinous -

Woah, heinous?

Really breaking out the thesaurus on that one. That’s worth like a 10-points in Scrabble right there.

He must have been pretty impressed with himself on that one, he repeated it a lot.

Ugly-

What, am I in violation of a city ugly ordinance now?

Fake Toony: Hello, police? I’d like to report my neighbor… for being the ugliest uggo to ever ugg!

Fake cop: Ugly you say?! Outside designated ugly hours! Now that is a crime!

Fake Toony: A heinous crime!

Oh, and – get this, he kept calling me “psycho.”

Yeah. Between the two of us, with me minding my business, just wanting to go to bed after a long, irritating day at work, and him standing around in the dark to screaming abuse at women alone in the dark

Yeah. Clearly I was the psycho one. Ok.

Toony repeated the same handful of insults. Didn’t take long to reach the limit of his vocabulary.

He just kept standing out there, screaming in the dark at nearly midnight.

I could hear him even inside my house.

What, I thought he cared about noise disturbances. But oh, I guess he’s special. A dog barking in the middle of the day makes me terrible, but this grown ass man screaming as loud as he can is just fine.

I bet every house on the block heard him. Though no one poked their head outside to check what was up. It turned out they’d all had their own run-ins with these people too and just weren’t about to get involved.

Yeah, thanks everyone.  

But I did have some help. It came from Reddit.

Yeah. That reddit. Of all places. If you want to fine a way to deal with shrieking jerks, go to their breeding ground.

I’m kidding. I like reddit.

The subreddit /r/letsnotmeet was on my side. I’d been writing about my neighbors there ever since I found them lurking around my house and detailing their creepy behavior. The sub advised me to record incidents with the neighbors, that way if their antics escalate, and I ever have to do anything about it, I’d have ongoing documentation on my side.

So I grabbed my phone in one hand and pepper spray in the other, and went back outside. I’d just record from a safe distance, just get what I need and get back inside.

But… he was gone.

So… he figured I was in for the night, so he no longer needed to be out there either.

Was he waiting for me to get home? Just so he could do this?

Ok. Alarm bells. Alarm bells ringing real loud now.

And I turned out to be right, because a pattern emerged and this started happening pretty regularly. So I had confirmation.

These people were watching me. They figured out my work schedule, irregular as it was, and knew that most days I worked a shift that would have me home at about 11PM, where they could catch me alone in the dark.

I started to enjoy days I’d work overtime, just knowing those idiots were outside waiting for me, for who knows how long, only to be stood up. HA! Sucker!

I’ll take the small victories.

[bernuviels-inspiration]

Mike Shinoda's show in Zurich, 17. March 2019

I had the amazing chance to attend one of Mike’s concerts of the last Post Traumatic Tour. And it was absolutely awesome!

You can read all about my little adventure under the cut. It’s pretty long though. xD

I was very surprised when Mike announced a show in Switzerland, since we did pretty bad in the „WeDemand“ campaign and I barely knew any other Swiss fans. But I was so grateful and excited – Zurich is only about 20km from my home! In order to help make the show a success I founded a Facebook group for it. On show day we had 90 members! I had also joined the Linkin Park Street Team a while ago and they sent me some posters to put up. And I printed 1'000 flyers and distributed them around Zurich with some friends from the group. I met so many nice people from all over the world thanks to that group: Finland, Denmark, Brazil, Spain, USA, etc. And even finally some fellow Swiss fans! We planned flash mobs, painted a flag and even had a little meet up the day before the show. It was so much fun! Thank you LP Family, I love you all dearly. <3

Since I'm an LPU member, I tried my luck with the Meet & Greet contest again. And as usual when it comes to random, luck-based things, I had none. But there was another contest by the host of the event. They wanted us to tell them, why we deserve to win a Meet & Greet. Both of my sisters wrote beautiful, heartwarming comments about my commitment with the FB group and advertising, but also how I coped with Chester's death by drawing all those LP artworks and how much this band (and especially Mike) mean to me. Even complete strangers said, that they think I deserve it most. That moved me to tears! At first the tickets were given away to someone else. But one of the winners got ill and asked the host to give the ticket to someone who really wants it. And they chose me! I couldn't believe it! That was so nice of all of them. Thank you so much. <3 And so the most incredible thing happened: I got to meet my hero! The 16 lucky winners were taken into the cool London bus of a local radio station. There we all got to meet Mike one by one. It was awesome, but unfortunately also very brief. Everything happened so fast, that I didn't really have time to realize what was going on. I just remember that the first thought that went through my head when I stood in front of him was: “He is so CUTE!”. I mean, I knew that before, but he's even more adorable in real life and up close. xD I was very nervous and probably talked too much, which is very unlike me. But I could finally give Mike the Post Traumatic artwork I drew for him, which means my biggest dream came true. And he signed the second one for me. In the picture it looks as if he wanted to say something about it, but couldn't because I was blabbering too much – damn! I'm so sorry, Mike. Oh, and the hat was a gift to him from one of my friends from the group. I almost started laughing, when I realized he wore a jacket with the exact same pattern – that's so Mike! And also yay, free fluff. :D

After the Meet & Greet we were even allowed to go into the venue first! That meant front row! I've never been that close to a stage before and was super excited about it. I'm usually not the “front row type”, since I'm quite reluctant and shy. While waiting there, I saw a crew member put our Swiss flag onto Matt's keyboard. I texted the girl, who painted it and she was super happy about it. We succeeded with getting the flag to the crew through the M&G – I was damn proud of us! xD Then the “opening act” started. Well, it was more of a last minute stand in, since the original one (a local rapper) got canceled without any explanation. And so a young “DJ” was hiding behind his laptop, playing one song after another without doing any DJ-ing. They could have just turned the radio on, but it was okay. We weren't there for him anyway. And finally, showtime! Mike, Matt and Dan entered the stage with lots of applause from the crowd. They even started the set with a song that hasn't opened any sets on this tour before: When They Come For Me. I love this song, it's so much fun! I was just hoping that my parents, who I talked into coming to the show too (yes, I did that with everyone I knew xD), didn't catch a certain word. I didn't want them to think badly of Mike. xD Following was the probably most well-known (at least in Switzerland) Fort Minor song Remember The Name, also unusually early in the set. Then Mike took the first little break and welcomed the audience. That was our signal for the first flash mob! It was a very spontaneous one, inspired by a certain video, he has uploaded just a few days prior. The front row was shouting: More cowbell! Mike started laughing and walked over to Dan, who indeed had a cowbell on his drum set. Mike said “Just for you guys.” and played a hilarious cowbell intro to Ghosts, which is a kinda funny song anyway, thanks to the sock puppets. I was so happy: Another success and we even made Mike laugh! :D

Next Mike talked about a tweet from the same day, where someone was analyzing the chances of a song being played in his set. He doesn't like to be predictable, so he decided to screw up the statistics and play some extra rare songs tonight. Thank you, spreadsheet guy! xD The first song that came from this, was the hilariously sarcastic High Road. It's in my Top 3 FM songs and funnily enough, he played it last year in Cologne too – one of only 5 times on the tour! The following song had a high chance of being played and I love it very much: The emotional Roads Untraveled. During the “and if you need a friend, there's a seat here alongside me”, Mike pointed at the crowd again. That's just so nice of him! Then Mike played something super rare again, it was actually even a tour debut: Kenji! I know how much this song about the tragic history of his family means to Mike, so it was a great honor to hear it live. Some fans (including me) even made the peace sign at the end of the song, like he used to. That was really moving. And he continued with songs I love dearly, starting with the PT bonus track Prove You Wrong. Even though the melody sounds kinda sad, there is something so uplifting in those lyrics. Mike also put it into his Instagram stories and you can actually see me singing along. I sang every song as loud as I could, forgetting about my shyness for a while. It was amazing! The next song in the set was the only one that got me emotional in a negative way (but only for a second). I was prepared for In The End and his speech, but I was not prepared for Nobody Can Save Me. For a moment I was back on July 20th, sitting in the darkness of my room and singing along to the One More Light album while crying. Luckily I managed to snap out of that quickly, because I actually love this song. It's one of the best Linkin Park has ever written, in my opinion, because it has such a great message. Nobody can save us – only we ourselves can. And Mike sang so beautifully... What an honor to hear that live! Another OML song followed (luckily not OML itself, I just can't take that one): Sorry For Now. Dan played an amazing drum solo in the bridge and Mike added the demo verse of Lift Off afterwards. He then even rapped the chorus of Step Up, a super rare and old LP song! (I could tell, because barely anybody knew the answer to “Who can rock a rhyme like this?” - I swear I shouted “Like this!” as loud as I could. xD) I love Step Up! Especially in the amazing rock-hip hop medley with Nobody's Listening and It's Going Down, that LP used to play in the Meteora days. Mike then also introduced Dan, who got a lot of applause from the crowd. Later he also introduced Matt, by asking him since when he's even been there. Matt answered: “The entire tour, but sometimes I take bathroom breaks.”, which resulted in Mike laughing about his British accent. These dorks! There was also another crew member, that Mike introduced to us: Photographer Chady. Some Swiss friends of his had invited Mike to eat Raclette (melted cheese that you usually put on potatoes, pickles and pearl onions – it's very tasty!). Mike joked that eating lots of cheese before a show is really good for you. xD The set continued with PTs lead single Crossing A Line, which inspired my artwork. I just love how hopeful it is. During the song, Mike threw some guitar picks into the crowd. I wasn't trying to catch anything, since I already had that awesome signature and thought other fans deserved it more. But I guess Mike had other plans... During the bridge of the song he plays on his drum pads for a moment and then throws the sticks into the crowd blindly. Well, he tried to kill me with it! xD (Luckily I put the phone away, just a moment before the drumstick hit my hand. Damned it Mike, that hurt! xD)

He then played another PT song, which I love dearly: Hold It Together. The lyrics are pretty dark, but there is something very fun about the melody. The first mashup followed: Waiting For The End / Where'd You Go. The crowd's singing sounded amazing, especially in the outro, which is a piano version of WFTEs first verse and chorus. Mike praised us: “You guys have beautiful voices. You should sing more often, it's good for you.” Matt and Dan left the stage and Mike started this calm piano playing and speech. Time for our second flash mob! We held up signs that said: “Music Inspiration Kindness Emotion”. This time there were even more signs than for the first one. (I spent quite some time inviting every fan to join our flash mob before the show and handing out the signs I designed.) Mike noticed them, curiously asking “What are those?” Then he realized it: “That's my name! That's very kind. Thank you guys very much, that's cool.“ He seemed so happy and both of our flash mobs were a success! He then continued with his speech, saying that he doesn't want these shows to be sad, but to celebrate Chester's life instead. The crowd cheered very loudly for Chester for several minutes! And then we all sang the beautiful piano version of In The End together. After that, Mike asked us if we wanted to sing another song. Is that even a question?! xD He started to play Heavy, but stopped before the singing part, because he thought the crowd would want another song more. I already got worried during the show and it really hurt me, when I saw all the hate the Swiss crowd got on social media from people who weren't even there... As if we wouldn't know the words to Heavy... It's the most played LP song on the Swiss radio! We would have loved to sing it! (Me especially, because my father was in the crowd and he really likes that song.) But Mike decided that Numb would be a better fit, maybe even to not make everyone too sad. Numb is my favorite Linkin Park song, because it's the one that made me fall in love with the band in the first place. And it was awesome to sing it with so many people. The Swiss crowd did a great job! Video: In The End & Numb (with Mike's speech & reaction to the second flash mob) They closed the main set with my favorite medley of the tour: About You / Over Again / Papercut. Even though it reminds me a lot of Chester (About You & Over Again are the PT songs that are most about him) and it's really painful to see Mike perform Papercut's bridge alone, I could also enjoy it. Everyone was jumping around and shouting during Papercut. That song is just so great! Mike, Matt and Dan then left the stage for the encore break. The crowd started to sing “lift me up, let me go”, but not as loud as in Italy a few days before. We are just a generally reluctant nation. The hall also wasn't as full as I hoped it would be. There were probably around 2'000 people. Hopefully we did well enough for Mike to want to come back to Switzerland. After a few minutes, Mike, Matt and Dan sneaked back on stage, hiding behind their instruments. As if we wouldn't notice them anyway! Such dorks. xD They played a beautiful instrumental version of Robot Boy, which really let their skills and teamwork shine. It's so sad to think that this is the last Post Traumatic tour. Matt and Dan have really grown on me and it's hard to see them leave. Mike then sang a beautiful PT song I haven't heard live before and that wasn't even originally planned: World's On Fire. I know he wrote it for his wife Anna (and his kids), who is a wonderful person too, but it was as if the crowd was singing it for Mike. It's true, when the world's on fire, all we need is him. I'm so grateful that he shared PT with us! He led us all through the grief and darkness that followed Chester's death. And that night it was obvious, that we are in a much better place now. Following was the beautiful, consoling Castle Of Glass, one of my favorite LP songs. And then they played the second PT single Make It Up As I Go. Such an amazing song and it always reminds me of those hilarious moth memes. xD Mike encouraged us to sing his part of the chorus while directly looking at me. I was singing my heart out! He smiled and shouted “yeah!” That was an awesome moment. I rarely felt so appreciated like on that day, not just by Mike but also by the other fans. The last mashup followed: Good Goodbye / Bleed It Out (including a drunken pirate who wanted to give Mike a kiss xD) and the crowd went wild! For Running From My Shadow, the last song of the set, Mike came down to the crowd as he always does. He stood on the barricade just about two meters away from me. It was great to see him have so much fun up close! Afterwards he high-fived the front row (including me :D) and returned to the stage. He smashed one of Dan's cymbals until the end of the song and then soaked us in water. When Mike left the stage, he stopped at our Swiss flag and blew it a kiss. I loved seeing that, because it gave me hope that we didn't disappoint him and he might come back someday.

I still can't believe all of this actually happened! I made new friends from all over the world. I met my hero and finally got to give him my artwork. I got to spend the entire show in front row, super close to Mike. They played so many amazing songs and had so much fun. The flash mobs worked out and our flag made it on stage. All my hard work payed off. I really enjoyed this concert, it was a once in a lifetime experience. Thank you so much, everyone! I hope I'll see you all again soon. ;)